Bonefish will swim 65 miles an hour. When you hook a bone fish, hang on. What are they going to do? Rocket ships. You and the number one female angler in the world are just hanging out in Patagonia. And then he invites me to his house.
This is like sitting with Jack Nicholas if you're a fly fisherman. That's crazy. So, I'm a little starruck by some of these people. I mean, when you talk about your goal with the podcast, [music] where do you hope this thing goes? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hooser State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's [music] conversation.
Before we dive into today's episode, a quick shout out to our friends at NCW, the team that's been building one of the fastest growing staffing and recruiting companies in America for over 25 years. They specialize in the skilled trades. [music] But here's the thing, they're also growing their own internal team. If you or someone you know is interested [music] in recruiting sales, or just making businesses run smoother, you'll want to check them out at teamncw. com. This is just another job pitch.
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My guest today is Steve Heg and he is the founder and host of the Destination Angler [music] podcast, a fly fishing podcast focused on destination travel, local expertise, and storytelling. What started during co as a passion project has grown into a global platform with listeners all across the United States and across the world. He's based here in Carmel, Indiana, and he combines his passion for fly fishing, adventure, podcasting, and art to help anglers discover destinations across North America and beyond. I'm really excited to dive into one, starting the podcast, your love for fly fishing, and the insane growth you guys have experienced over the past six years. Steve, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks Nate.
Appreciate it. You're a better reader than I am. [laughter] That's really good. You did a nice job. Well, you know, we have a little bit of practice on trying to set the set the scene and tell this amazing story that starts I mean the podcast starts as a passion project for you during co Exactly. Uh I want to know again you're I can say you are uh let's say seasoned you have a few years uh on me a little bit [laughter] here.
Okay. What got you to want to start a podcast? Uh the podcast so I was had a day job. I was um uh in corporate sales and uh during COVID nobody wanted to hear from us. So my boss said, you know, I'm going to go refinish my kitchen furniture for a couple months. Why don't you find something else to do for a while?
And so I'm like, okay, I'm going to start a podcast. And I thought I might get 500 downloads, you know, maybe 5,000 would be a runaway smash hit. And just blew through that. Wow. Right away. Were you an avid listener of podcast?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like what were your favorite podcasts to consume and to listen to? Mostly fishing podcast. Okay. So, all in on wildlife and fishing.
Yeah. Okay. Did have you always had a love for fishing? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Where'd you grow up at?
Toledo, Ohio. You grew up in Toledo. So, that would have been what the the mudhens and the big like the grass carp and the stuff that are up in the Is that Lake Erie? Lake Erie. Yeah. Home of uh 130 million walleye.
W That's what I was The walleye. Yeah. Walleye. Yeah. Okay. So, you grew up fishing?
I grew up So, get this. When I grew up, there was a a creek that ran through our neighborhood called the 10mi creek. Completely polluted. They were back in the 1960s. Yes, I'm older than you. They were pumping raw sewage into the creek.
And we used to sit on a pipe that pump raw sewage and we'd throw, you know, chopped up hot dogs, you know, put a hook on a hot dog and toss it in. We catch these carp with literally toilet paper floating through the river. But, you know, I'm like eight years old and I'm catching a 12PB carp, right? Yeah. That thing can almost pull me in the water. So, it's pretty exciting.
Was there ever a day that you fell in? Oh, we used to fall in all the time. Oh, all the time. We used to We used to play hockey. It used to freeze on the 10-mi creek. We'd play hockey down there, you know, towards the edges.
You'd fall in and Yeah. Wow. Different time. Yeah. But you know what? Today the 10mi creek is completely cleared up, cleaned up and they took the there's a dam that they took out and now they have steel head which was a lakeun rainbow.
They have steel head that occasionally wander in through the 10 milei creek. So I could have caught steel head in my backyard if they clean that thing up. How big are steel head? Those are a pretty big fish, right? Steel head. I mean in Indiana steelhead, you know, a 20 to 25 in fish is pretty good.
But out west, you know, the real steel head that live in the Pacific Ocean, they get to be 30 in and just he's amazing. So, has has fishing then always been a passion of yours? Yes. Okay. So, you went from turning a passion into a pro like what was your first episode? What did you what did you want to talk about?
Did you bring on a guest? You know, I So, I've been, you know, fly fishing all over the place for a long long time. All over the country. Now, fly fishing. There's all fly fishing. Okay.
Now, was that what you were doing when you were little? Not when I was real little. I started fly fishing when I was 14. My dad uh had a friend who belonged to a a trout club in northern Ohio. Get this, there is trout fishing in Ohio and there's a bunch of trout clubs near Sandusky, Ohio. And so we went to this place called Rockwell.
It was it changed my life. I mean, I just fell in love with fly fishing. Okay. Now, talk to me for the novice listeners here. What's the difference between casting a line, reeling it in, and fly fishing? So, are you a fisherman, Nate?
I'm I would not say a fisherman. No. I like drink a beer and like hang out on on the edge and you know cast wine. You got to start somewhere. Absolutely. After this podcast I might be a fisherman.
You know what people always tell me? I'm not patient enough to fly fish. Like I can't just sit there. Well, good news. When you're fly fishing, you are not just sitting there. So, it's an active process.
It is an active Yeah. You have So, it's I call it a thinking man's game because when you're fishing, particularly when you're fishing for trout, fly fishing for trout, you got to figure out what the trout are feeding on. Now, trout eat mostly insects, but also sometimes they'll eat minnows and crayfish and things swimming around in the in the bottom of a of a river. So, you have to kind of know uh what's going on in terms of like bugs that are hatching. Typically, they're eating mayflies and catis flies and stone flies and you're going, "What are those?" So, wow.
Okay. So, you're going out there. Let's if you were going on a like a an afternoon where you're going to fly fish, you'd kind of go out there and get a a sense of the river like, "Hey, are there a lot of bugs on the top there that the trout are feeding on? Are they If there's not bugs and they're probably eating minnows and stuff that are down subsurface." Yeah. Wow.
Yeah. So they so so may flies you know they when you see them on the surface that's when they're they're hatching but they're also living under the water for you know most of the year as a called little nymphs. So you may be fishing these little tiny little nymphs that imitate these mayfly patterns. Wow. So you got to kind of figure out like what time of year is it? Like in Michigan in May a lot of times it's you know these flies that are all kind of yellow, right?
They're sulfers they're called. And so you kind of you go in knowing that like what should what am I going to expect when I go up to to Michigan or wherever I'm going. Wow. And you can call shops that will tell you what's going on. You go in there and they'll sell you all the flies you need. Wow.
And so you get the flies and then you're are you constantly like putting it out, bringing it back, putting it out, bringing it back. Like how does what's the mechanics of fly fishing? So fly fishing, the difference between fly fishing and spin fishing is that with a spinning rod, the weight of the lure pulls the line off your reel and out towards the fish, right? So you cast it, boom, weight of the line, weight of the reel, sorry, the weight of the lure. With fly fishing, these flies don't have any weight, right? So it's the weight of the line.
So that's why you see these guys casting this motion, this back and forth, these big loops of these heavier lines. They're actually made out of PVC, right? And they're tapered. They're a certain shape to them. And so the weight of the line is what's actually delivering the fly to the fish. Whoa.
Yeah. And at the end of the line, you go from PVC line that's super flexible down to a tapered leader that goes down to something for trout, you have to fish with leaders that are like the size of your hair. Literally like two pound test, right? Not like 12 pound test like you did for bass here in Indiana. Wow. And then do you let it sit there or do you pull it back in immediately?
So it depends what you're doing. Um so typically what you have to do is you have to imitate a bug floating down the river. So if if your line is pulling the bug through the water, does that look natural? No, not at all. So you have to figure out how to do it's called a dead drift. So how do I drift the fly so that it's not pulling?
Right. And so there's all kinds of techniques. It depends where you're standing in the water. Depends what kind of currents there are in the water. Wow. Right.
And you may get an 18inch drift or you may get an 18 ft drift. It just depends. That fish may be feeding up underneath a bush or overhanging tree. You got to cast sidearm up underneath that tree. And maybe you just get it just for a foot and a half. It's over that fish.
Hopefully he comes up and he takes it. It'll be the It'll be the take of your life. Wow. Okay. Talk about the take of your life. I want to know where in your passion for fly fishing were you hooked?
Where was it just like this is going to be my thing? Like some people like cars, some people like houses or landscaping and your thing is going to be fly fishing. How old were you when you just became hooked? Um, you know, so the first time my dad took me to Rockwell. We went with a group of guys, right? So my dad and his friends and my good friend Bill and uh nobody was helping me all day long and I spent half the day up in the trees, you know, tangled up.
Wasn't sure if I had didn't know what I was doing. And finally a friend of my dad saw me struggling. Wasn't catching anything. My dad was nowhere to be found. He was catching all kinds of fish. Wasn't helping me at all.
So a little bit about my childhood. Yeah. Right. But uh um and this guy Clint Mock walked up to me and he said, "Let me help you here." And he put on a different fly and he kind of got wrapped his arms around me, kind of showed me how to cast and everything and I started catching fish right away. You caught like instantly just like technique changed, fly change, different fly.
Okay. this is what you're doing wrong. You know, like you can't stand over them. Those fish right there, they see you, right? They're on to you. They may not be swimming away cuz they're used to people, but they're not going to take your fly.
So, we got to cast another 30 ft over there to those fish over there. And so, I had a chance to reconnect with Clint Mock years later and he since passed away and I had a chance to thank him because he taught me how to tie flies. So, I make my own flies, right? Very rarely buy any flies. Yeah. And uh I had a chance to just call him up and say, "You know what, Mr.
Mock, right? I really appreciate you doing that because, you know, this has been a really important thing to me in my life." So that from that moment on, I was like, I love this fly fish. Wow. And and you know, turns out you probably called them up years later before you started the podcast. Probably about the time I started the podcast.
I'm not even sure, but um Yeah, [clears throat] that's amazing. Like it's always wild to think about the conversations with people they might not even remember that change your life. Yeah. And like him taking the time, you know, teaching this kid how to fish. Yeah. And you're like, you know, years later, like, oh my gosh, thank goodness he did that cuz, you know, now you have this in incredible podcast in this incredible passion for fly fishing.
And people, I tell you, people go through stages of of uh when they fish, first they want to catch a lot of fish, then they want to catch a big fish, then they want to catch a fish in a particular way, right? like I want to use a certain type of a fly, certain type of season, get them underneath that overhanging log or whatever it is. Then eventually get to the point where you just enjoy watching other people catch fish, you know, and I think I'm kind of I'm getting there. I'm probably not I still want to catch big fish and I want to catch a lot of fish, you know, but I really enjoy teaching other people to fly fish. I love to see that that like one especi especially people that say, "I'm just completely hyper. I just can't sit there."
Well, so am I. Wow. I'm completely My wife tells me I'm add. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Which would make sense why uh fly fishing is more your speed than than spin fishing.
Yeah. Cuz I feel like just sitting there I kind of do get a little bit bored and you're just hanging out there. But it is one of the things where you just have to give it. It's like golf. It's like the first, you know, however many times you go golfing, I'm like, "This is brutal. I can't do I can't keep the ball down the fairway."
And then it's like, "Oh, hey, this isn't once you start to get it going, it's not too bad." I'm sure that's how it is. It's similar. It's similar to golf. It is, you know, where you're always learning. You've never mastered it, right?
There's always something you can you can learn about a fishery or how you're casting. I have a friend that went to a famous casting school. And he's a very good angler. And there's a casting school in the Catkills called the Joan Wolf School of Casting. It's on the upper Delaware. And he came back and he says, "I've learned 18 different casts."
18. But I know I think I know like six. It turns out I'm already doing like 15 of them. I didn't even know it, but she's teaching you how to do these casts. So, yeah. Wow.
Okay. I want to know like what was the first episode? How did you like learn everything you needed to learn to launch a podcast? I put it off. I told my boss I was going to go start a podcast. I was like, uh, you know what?
If it doesn't go very well and I finally was like, whatever, I'm just going to try it. So, I called some fishing guides that I've been with recently. I've been to Tennessee fishing or a river called the Wataga. And I called this guy up and I said, "Hey, man. You want to be on my podcast? I have zero listeners.
I can't promise you anything's going to happen, you know. And uh yeah, I remember the first episode, you know, just wrote out all my notes, had all my questions, and it was like 35 minutes. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm running out of things to talk about, you know, and now I can't, you know, it's like we have to cut them off, you know, after like an hour and 20 minutes. Okay, this is long enough, you know, we're going to have to end the podcast." So, wow. So, you just called up one of your fishing guides for the first episode and you're like, "Hey, we're gonna what?"
you just chitchat about that specific place. Yeah. Yeah. It's all it's destination focus. So, we talk about um you know specific So, I've done 170 shows all over the world, mostly in the US and North America. And are they all correlated to trips you've been on or do you call places that you want to go on?
I wish. No, there's um so I've actually I've probably been to maybe a quarter of the places. Okay. I've done which is still you're thinking like 40 40 or 50 places probably. Yeah. You know, I was just this so this year I was in Alaska in August and I was in Argentina in January.
Amazing. That's Patagonia, right? Patagonia is amazing. That's one of the best experience I've had in my adult life. Not just fishing, just experiences. Patagonia is amazing.
Okay. Wait, let take me through how you ended up in Patagonia. So, I have a sponsor on my podcast who um does these um he's a travel company and he does just fly fishing trips. And so, I said, "Well, let's put together a trip for listeners." And so we ended up taking a bunch of listeners down to Patagonia. How many is a bunch?
Uh there were 10 of us. I mean a 10erson trip to Patagonia to fly fish. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. And so we it was 48 hours to get there and the last seven were on dirt roads in a jeep and we and then we get to this five-star lodge literally in the middle of nowhere, right?
And we get out, we're covered in dust and they're like, "Welcome." They're hugging us. They're kissing us. They already know our names. Handing us glasses of malbeck um empanas or those little empanadas empanadas. Thank you.
Oh gosh. And then we're like we want to go fishing. Oh, we weren't going to go to No, we want to go fishing. 20 minutes later, five guides and jeep show up and we go fishing. And that's the way the week was. We ended up going fishing from horseback.
What? In the streams. No human has ever fished before. And we know that because they had to go up the day before and clear all the brush out so we can actually cast. No. They were the hospitality was off the charts.
They are the the friendliest people and I don't think there's anything like that in America. What kind of fish were you catching? Trout in Patagonia. Rainbows and brown trout. Okay. So, there's 10 of you.
Who who catches the first fish and like you know it draws first blood on the trip? Was not me. I tell you the first uh cuz you know the guy was like here stand here and he you know and then after he washes me before okay this guy knows what he's doing. He's you know. So, I get back, I caught like two and everybody else had caught like 10 and I was like, "Oh, shoot." You know, I'm behind the eightball here.
But, you know, it doesn't matter. Where were your guests all from? Like, uh, couple friends from Toledo, Ohio. Uh, a couple guys from Texas, bunch of guys from Pennsylvania. That's awesome. So, I went with a lady I interviewed who's actually head of Team USA.
So, you probably didn't know this, but United States has a a men's team, a women's team, and they also have a youth team. And so the men's team uh have done really well. The women's team has never have never won gold, but they had just won gold in Idaho and they're trying to beat the Europeans usually is what's happening. And they finally won gold. And this lady, her name's Tess Wagon. She won personal gold.
So she's legitimately the number one angler in the world. So it's like I am fishing with Scotty Sheffller. That's crazy. And we spent a week with her. you and the number one female angller in the world in the world are just hanging out in Patagonia for a week and a wonderful lady. She's she's amazing.
So she's she's a fishing guide in Bosezeman and then she spends like uh April May in uh central Pennsylvania. How important is a guide? Like if if I wanted to take 10 of my friends out to fly fish for the first time. Yeah. And like how important is having a guide versus just like going out there and doing it? Well, you need you need somebody to show you uh how to do it, right?
So, I would start in your front lawn with a fly rod just casting, right? And just, you know, it's kind of like if you just started to play golf, you weren't on the driving range at first, you know, what would you just be whiffing, balls would be going right and left. at least get to the point where you can cast 20 30 ft. Okay. And so that like I could teach you in a half an hour how to do that. How to cast 20 30 ft and like you would have a chance to at least catch something.
Yeah. Yeah. So you have to be able to at least get the line out there, right? And then a guide is going to do two things. One, they're going to work on your technique and give you confidence, right? And then they're also going to say, "Hey, this is what's working.
Not only the fly, but how you present the fly, like how you're fishing the fly." So there's a lot of different ways to do that. Yeah. So you need a guide. So you post your first podcast, you you know, you get it up online. It's with a guide from Tennessee.
Mhm. And I'm assuming just raving success. Your 5,000 downloads come through first episode. Not quite. [laughter] I don't It just It went well. I don't remember.
I hit 5,000 within the first couple episodes, though. No way. Yeah. So there was just a Was there just a gap in the market of listenership for for destination? I couldn't, you know, I went out and I checked the checked the URL and the Destination Angler podcast URL was available. I couldn't believe it, you know, like no one scooped up Destination Angler and so I grabbed that and Yeah.
Well, I feel like angller is not necessar like that's a niche term. It is. You know, like you have to really be into fishing and is it fly fishing makes you an angller? Well, anybody fishes in an angller, but the reason I pick angler is because I want to appeal to men and women. So, I can't say the destination angler fisherman. Yeah.
And I can't say that's, you know, fish are women. Yeah. It gets really obvious angler. Everyone's an angler. So, you know, we want to get more women in this sport. So, how many episodes when you first started?
How often were you putting out shows? Uh, someone So, I got an editor uh on Upwork, which is a gig economy site. Heard of it, right? And this guy lives in Serbia. All right. And he's and and this guy was awesome.
He's still my editor today. So, I do a show. I send it off to him. He knows exactly what to do. Makes me sound good. deepens my voice by a half an octave or something, you know, it does all the things you need him to do.
And he's like, "You need to put three shows out there. Don't put one out at a time. Put So, I did three shows in like three weeks and put those out there." Um, but I remember he made me record my intro like seven times. Nope. Not good enough.
Not good enough. He's been great, right? Wow. Yeah, that's impressive. Wow. And you found him on Upwork.
How did you learn about Upwork? I don't know. just you know just like you just went down the the rabbit hole and started learning how to put out a podcast. You just start researching it. How am I, you know, first thing is like how am I going to the technology like how am I going to get the recording from my computer from here and my ear, you know, hear the conversation cuz I interview people over the phone, right? So like just straight over the phone.
Well, and it was over um uh Zoom at first. Yeah. Now I'm on a different platform. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Yeah. That's incredible. Who's been the most interesting person you've met through the Destination Angler podcast? So many people. That's that's really been I hope I'm my podcast brings a lot of joy to people. That's my goal, right?
Uh but it's brought me a lot of joy. Yeah. And I've learned a ton about fly fishing. So interesting people. The list just goes like on and on. I mean um I just interviewed a world famous angller out of uh West Yellowstone, Montana.
guy named Craig Matthews who wrote a wrote a book with Ivon Shannard, you know, who founder of Patagonia. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, those two were like best friends. So, I'm hearing all these stories about I I went to his fly shop in 2001. I probably met the guy.
I didn't even realize it. I took my son out there when he was just 12 years old, 200 2002, I guess. And uh so he's he's like really he was he got hired from Lancing, Michigan to be the West Yellowstone police chief. And he's like there's like racketeers in West Yellow. I mean, this is a little tourist town. These are everything you think of.
There's people doing drugs, racketeers, town drunks, you know, and then two people were killed in Yellowstone that year in the 1970s by grizzly bears. Oh gosh. You know, and he's like, we pulled out a face plate on one person. That was all that was left. And then about 70 lbs of a 270lb man. That was it.
Well, you're like, this is not Lancing anymore. This This is not This is not Kansas anymore. Yeah. Toto. So, wow. He like he's really And then I interviewed um I call him the Jack Necklace of fly fishing.
His name is Joe Humphre. I think he's 96 now. He lives in uh central Pennsylvania in State College. Got to have some stories. Joe, so Joe is head of the Penn State fly fishing program and he's also been uh a coach for the USA fly fishing team. And um everybody out there knows Joe, but I got a chance to interview Joe and there's a movie about him called Live the Stream.
Okay. It's a If you want to look at fly fishing, go either see River Runs Through It or Live the Stream. Those are two great movies. You're interested in fly fishing. Yeah. And so here I am.
I got a chance to interview Jill Humphre, you know, and uh I [clears throat] spent an hour with him ahead of time, two hours to do do two shows with him. And then he invites me to his house. So I drive out there and we go fly fishing with him. He's sitting in his um living room. You know, this is a really world. This is like sitting with Jack Nicholas if you're a fly fisherman.
You know, that's crazy. And then halfway through the conversation, uh, I was like, "Hey, you you want to go fishing?" He's like, "Sure." So, he's I think he was 92 when I was out there and and we go to his favorite spot and all these people are coming up to him, Mr. Humphre. It's so great to meet you.
And I'm with him. I'm with Joe. You know, you must be important. Got a Christmas card. I'm sitting at my dinner table and a friend of mine's over and my phone rings and it I just got through telling him about Joe Humphre and my phone rings. It's Joe Humphre.
Hello, Joe. Uh-huh. Yeah. And he just wanted to say thanks for something that I mailed him. No way. Yeah.
That's incredible. So, I'm a little starruck by some of these people. Yeah. You know, just a lot of really cool people. Now, where was the first moment that you realized you had uh like big velocity and like whether it be brands or guests or whoever where you start to realize that this is more than just a passion project? Well, I remember I sold my first ad to a company called Trout Routes.
I've been in sales all my life. Selling advertising is a different deal, right? So, you gota had to think that through. Did they reach out to you? Did you reach out to them? I called I called them.
You just give them a buzz. Hey, I mean, they have mapped 50,000 trout streams in the lower 48. So, every trout stream just about is in their app. So I can find exactly where to fish, what public land, private land, you know, everything about a trout stream right in an app. Yeah. So this is perfect.
I mean, I'm a destination, you know, fly fishing podcast. So I think I charged him like 50 bucks. [laughter] The classic, hey, but it's revenue. It's you've got you got money coming in the door. It's better than a sharp sharp stick in the eye. [laughter] Yeah.
Okay. So it goes from there. Have there been any like I mean one you talk about a travel like a tourism brand like getting to plan a trip and go to Patagonia that's crazy. Have there been any other like insane brands you've got to work with? I'm probably a top 10 podcast in the industry. I'm just looking at my you know Google search results and but um so I get I get like the secondary brands.
I probably don't get the top top brands. But you're on the way. Yeah. Wow. And so you put out an episode every two weeks. Yeah.
170 episodes strong. Yeah. Uh what's been one that is the most memorable or what what one is like, you know, top of the charts for you? I've had a couple guys uh tell stories. Bobby Knight was a big fly fisherman. He's a hunter and a fisherman.
Oh, yeah. Huge. So, I can't tell you I've probably talked to a dozen people that fish with Bobby Knight. You either love him or you hate him. [laughter] That's very true. You know, there's no in between.
No one feels indifferent about Bob Knight. I mean, I love Bobby Knight. I got issues with some of the ways he handled things and you know, but uh anyway, so I was talking to a guy, a real famous angler named Jack Dennis who's out of uh Jackson, Wyoming, Jackson Hole, that area. He started a very famous fly shop out there called uh JD Country Outfitters. And um he's one of these guys. I got him on the podcast.
I think I asked him two questions in an hour and a half and he just talked the entire time. But he told these great stories and he said that uh he got a phone call from Kirk Gouty. Okay, Kirk Gouty was a guy that was on TV, a sports guy on TV, and he says, "Hey, I got somebody I need you to hide." And Jack's like, "What do you mean hide?" He says, "No, I can't tell you anything more, but he's going to be there tomorrow. Just be ready be at the airport at, you know, 3:00."
Okay. So, he gets there and guess who steps off the plane? It's Bobby Knight. He was he was just coming from Puerto Rico where he had I think he'd punched somebody and they were trying to arrest him. And so, he went to Jackson Hole to hide. And so he uh he hung out with uh Jack Dennis for three days hiding in Jackson Hole.
Fishing in Jackson Hole. What? Yeah. Yeah. That's where he went. Like people like the whole world wanted to know where Bobby Knight was.
Right. Cuz they literally had a warrant for his arrest in Puerto Rico. [laughter] And he was in Jackson was just fly fishing in Jacksonville. Flying. Yeah. Another guy um another guy interviewed from Tal, New Mexico.
Spencer Sim is his name. And I ended up fishing with him last summer. He does a great job. And uh Spencer said that uh that he heard that you know Bobby Knight took the Texas Tech job over in um in Leach and he's like man I'd really love to go fishing with I'd love to have him come and guide him. So I'm going to get Bobby Knight's attention. So he went out he he bought a little hobby chair a little tiny little hobby chair and he tied it to a hook and he mailed it to Bobby Knight and says next time you're angry about something throw this.
So, so he he tied a little hobby chair to a fly, you know, and he said the phone rang a couple days later and it was Bobby Knight still laughing cuz he just gotten his letter and he ended up fishing with a guy for like 3 days. Now, get this. Bobby Knight uh lost a really nice trout, like a trout in like the 18 in to 20in range is a trophy trout. and he had one on and he lost it and he kind of threw a fit and he snapped his Winston rod, which is like an $800 fly rod. Spencer just heard this snap and he turns around and Bobby guy has broken his fly rod. He's like, "Bobby, what are we going to do now?
I got to walk all the way back to the truck and get you another ride." I don't give a darn about, you know, and so they came back and he sat Bobby Knight down and he had a conversation with him about controlling his emotions. And Bobby Knight listened to him. He's like, I think I got through to him, you know. I got, you know, but you know, so that's why those are great stories. Yeah.
Oh my god. I mean, they just go on. I have another guy that fish with him and a guy named Dave Cumling fish with them. He he ran Montana Trout Fitters, which is a fly shop in Bosezeman. And Dave is a very strong willed individual. And guess who else is a strong willed individual, right?
So those two, it was like oil and water. This is back in the 90s. and Dave was like, "I'll never fish with that guy again." So, no, most people enjoyed him. So, we're going out for a bachelor party in Jackson Hole this summer. So, what's what's the secret?
Like, what do I need to know about in that greater I don't think we're staying in Jackson Hole or in Jackson. We're staying somewhere around there, but like advice if you want to go out fishing for a day. Well, you're in the center of of the universe for fly fishing. There are probably a dozen world famous premier blue ribbon trout streams within two hours of where you are. Oh, it's it's endless. So, what what I would do is I would uh call some of those local fly shops out there and um you know, get a guide and uh now they'll be expensive.
You'll be paying 700 bucks a day in J. That's a very ritzy town. So, pay top dollar. But the Snake River is full of species of trout called cutthroat trout. They're pretty easy to catch if you can find them. So cutthroat move around a lot.
Depends on water temps, but there's all kinds of tributaries and and it's a beautiful float. You go you float right down past the Tetons, right through the park and the water's all braided out and everything. You'll see moose. Uh you may see I had I was fishing out there a couple years ago and um I saw this big head in the water swimming through the water. I thought, "What in the world is that?" I thought it was a bear.
It was a beaver and it swam right up to me and all of a sudden saw me like from me to you. It flipped its tail, dove in the water and swam off. But there are trails that are two feet wide in the in the uh in the brush down by the river where these beavers are cruising through the brush. They're they're like 60, 70, 100 pound animals. Yeah, beaver is Yeah. Wow.
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Now, let's get back into the episode. So, that is that's like the the prime the center of the universe when it comes to all things angling. Yes. What about like if if there are listeners out there that live here in Indiana that just want to get started. They're like, you know what? I want to I want to go fly fishing.
I don't have $700 to spend on a guide. You know, what advice would you give for hers that want to start fly fishing? Well, there's some great fly fishing in Indiana. I'm not an expert in Indiana fishing, but I can tell you just about every blue line on a map in Indiana has smallmouth bass in it. Now, they're not as pretty as trout, but they fight every bit as hard as a trout. So, if you if you hook a 18-inch smallmouth I'm going this afternoon on the White River, as a matter of fact, we're going to float the White River this afternoon.
And uh if you can if you can figure out how to catch smallmouth bass on a fly rod that I think you'll love it. Okay. So, is there some something special when it comes to catching smallmouth? Well, smallmouth typically live in moving water. Largemouth typically live in in lakes and ponds. So, uh I think I don't know.
I think And so, for fly fishing, you want to be on a river. Uh you can No, you can fish in lakes. Yeah. They call it still water fishing. Is there And there's like a is there a large difference between the two? Uh yeah, I different techniques, right?
So, um, you know, still water, it depends what's going on. But if you're fishing for bass, you're either throwing like a a pattern that's on top, like a popper that looks like a frog, maybe, and you're just kind of popping it and then a largemouth sees all the splashing. Huh, what's that? They come up and take something off the surface. That's a lot of fun. You see your fly just explode and, you know, an 18inch uh, you know, couple pounds uh, smallmouth or largemouth on the end of your line.
That's a lot of fun. And then rivers, smallmouth are eating things, you know, like crayfish and minnow patterns, but they also eat insects from time to time. So, um, like today, we're probably going to be throwing a lot of they're called streamers. It imitates a minnow. Oh. And then is there a lot of changing out of your flies like while you're going or do you kind of have to pick something, set it, and then that's what you're you're attempting for the day.
So, what what I find is when I first get to a new location or a new river or something like that, it takes me a while to get dialed in and I'll change flies a lot. Then I'll start figuring out, okay, I'm starting to pick up fish with these kinds of patterns and then I'll stick to them. So when I first get there, I got all kinds of flies with me and if I, you know, like I fish my home waters here locally and I just take a box or two of flies and I'm good because I know what's going on. Wow. Okay. What about traveling in the greater, you know, Midwest region?
Like it's like, hey, I want to go on a fly fishing trip, but again, $700 a day is still pretty ritzy. Where would you have people go? That's like a driving like nearby distance. So there within a day's drive, there's some fantastic fisheries for trout. Okay. Okay.
Because trout is when you think of fly fishing, people think of catching trout. That's the thing. Yeah, they kind of do. But you know, saltwater fishing. I mean, you can catch tarpon, bonefish, permit, which are these fantastic tarpon get to be 200 lb. Oh, on a fly rod.
Yeah. 200 lb. People will catch marlin on fly rods. Yeah. Blue marlins on fly rods. And like down in like in Florida, all over.
Yeah. Just I mean I did a show on ocean a couple shows on saltwater fishing, but uh red fish, they live in these flats, right? These are like 1 to 2 feet of water around coastal areas like in Texas, Louisiana, all the way up to the Carolinas, all the way around Florida. A red fish is a fantastic fish. They got tarpon and bone fish. Wow.
Bonefish. Bonefish swim 65 miles an hour. When you hook a bone fish, hang on. No, they are gone. Yeah. Yeah.
And then tarpon they and they tarpon jump. Can you imagine a 150lb fish coming out of the water with your fly in its mouth and you're you know you kind of have to you know bend. It's called bow to the tarpon. You know bow to the tarpon. Bow to the tarpon. And um they're fantastic to fish.
But uh within a day's drive uh you can go to my favorite place is Wisconsin. And there's an area called the Drifless region. Okay. And it's it's a little west of Madison. It's about 7 hours. It's called the Drifless because the glaciers missed it.
So, it's this little eggshaped area that covers some of uh Iowa, Wisconsin, a little bit Illinois and Minnesota. And there's no glacial drift, you know, like glaciers left like rocks and things, big boulders. Yeah. You don't And it's mountainous. There's 1600t mountains in this part of Wisconsin. And it's every valley has got a trout stream and you can fish all of it.
They have a open to fishing policy there. Like if you keep your feet in the stream, you can fish right through private property legally in Wisconsin. It's really unique. That is unique. So you can enter a bridge and you can fish right up that stream and if someone kicks you out, they're breaking the law. Well, it's like you go back out in your backyard and there's just a bunch of fisherman sitting out there and you're like, "Ah, you got if you buy property on a trout stream in Wisconsin, you got to embrace it."
Yeah. I mean, that's part of it. And they even they even build like ladders up over their fences because they don't want you climbing over their fences and breaking their fences. Or they have these little zigzag gates that you can get through but cows can't get through, you know. And the DNR will buy partner natural resources up there buys these easements so you can get in and out. So Wisconsin's good.
Michigan where Michigan Well, the UP I think is one of the hidden gems in America. Like it doesn't get talked about much. Like the wilderness of the I've been up there once. Have you? Yeah. I saw my first moose.
It's like a horse with antlers. Yeah. With long legs. Yeah. Those things are crazy. They're crazy.
They're They're so much bigger than I ever I think I envisioned them being the size of like a big elk. They are just so much bigger. Like twice the size. Like 1,200 lb. Like I would not want to see that thing in my car. No chance.
No. No. Um so the up. You've been up there? Uh I have not fish I've been up to. I've not fished up there.
I've driven through it, but I've I've done a couple shows on the UP. See, this is nice because you get to have conversations and you probably have a list of a thousand different locations that you could go and and fish at with somebody. I get a lot of offers to go fishing with people, too. The guy who's taking me today, he's with organization called Trout Unlimit. It's a conservation organization. He heads up all engagement for the whole they have 400 employees and they work on conservation issues for uh trout, you know, trout fisheries around cold water fisheries around around the country.
Wow. And the guy lives two miles from my house. I met him last week up in Gring, Michigan. We're fishing the Osabo River. So downstate in Michigan, you got the Sabo, the Param Marquette, the Manaste, the Black, the Pigeon, uh the Sturgeon. I mean, it just goes on and on.
Michigan is loaded with great fly fishing. Wow. Uh even right over the border, you can go steelhead fishing on the St. Joe River in Indiana and also through Michigan. It's They have steel head in the in the St. Joe.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's it's they it's they stock 110,000 something like that. So they so they put steel head into Yeah. No no natural reproduction.
They have salmon too. They have king's ham coming in there. Those are like these 30 lb hook mouth beasts. What? Oh yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. This you can fish for king salmon in the St. Joseph River. Yes. Yeah. Those are Holy coo too.
So they have kings coo steel head and they all come in at different times of the year. So, first are the kings, then the coo, and then you get the steel head. They stay in there all winter. Wow. [sighs] So, steelhead fishing, the rule of thumb there is the more miserable you are, the better the fishing is. [laughter] So, what is that?
What do you mean by that? Just it's, you know, you're fishing in November, then again in February and March, you know, when it's Yeah. your your your rod guides are icing up, you know, and you know, with steel head fishing, you may not even hook anything. I mean, it is the fish of 10,000 cast. They say muskies are the kit fish at 10,000 cast. I'm finding steel header the fish at 10,000.
I've gone up there and hooked five or six in a day. I've gone up there. We were just up there in March. We didn't hook a thing. Not a thing. And the guy worked his butt off.
It's just one of those days. Some days they're in and biting. Some days they're not. But um that you know guys, when you get one though, hang on because you're hooking a fish that's used to 130 ft of water out in the lake and they come in and now they're in four feet of water. What are they going to do? Oh, rocket ships.
Wow. And they jump and they run and you got nets this big and net them. Is there a specific fish that you have caught that just like stands out as your pride and joy? So, my logo for my podcast is I'm holding a 24-in cutthroat that I caught at 10,000 ft in Montana along um it's called the beaten path in the Baretooth Wilderness. So, I was up there with my son and his two roommates from college. This is few years ago.
And uh we had hiked up to this lake. I I'd found it uh online and I'd read some of the fishing reports and it didn't look like it got fished that much, but a couple guys had talked about catching 16in fish. I thought, "Okay, that sounds good." A lot of times these fish are stunted in these lakes. So we get up. It took us half a day to get up there and find this thing.
And we finally did. And the fishing was so good. Like literally you we had two flies on at a time. You'd have two on two fish at a time on one rod. Yeah. So you fish you fish double a lot, right?
That's a thing you do with just in general. Yeah. Like a hopper, a dry fish on the top and then a dropper off the back or just two nymphs or something. Yeah. Yeah. Those are industry terms.
Yeah. N of course. Yes. Nymph fishing. So anyway, I had uh it got so it was just silly. Like you'd catch two fish and the fish would swim over to see what's going on.
Hey man, Bob just got caught. Let's see what's going on over here. It's like I had to like get away from the fish. It just wasn't. So finally I switched to a great big it's called a leech pattern, right? And there was a big drop off.
I could see it. And I tossed that leech pattern over this drop off and it sunk just as it went past the drop off. Boom. This huge fish came up. And now when you see a fish in the water, the water magnifies them a lot of time. And it looked like this three-foot trout.
And I thought, what is this? Trout don't get this big. It ended up being, you know, we we taped it. It was 24 in. But that was a cool fish. Yeah, I was with my son when I did it.
That's so cool. So, he took a video of it and everything at 10,000 feet. Yeah, we're at 10,000 feet. Yeah. On the Beartooth, almost near the top of the Beartooth. So, the Beartooth um the beaten path goes all the way from Cook City, Montana.
If you want to go to a really cool mountain town out west, Cook City, Montana is the coolest. It's where Ernest Hemingway used to hang out. Yeah. In the 1920s and 30s. Wow. He wrote a bunch of books up there.
Yeah. And you can hike from Cook City all the way over to a little place called East Rosebud. It's like 26 miles. And bring your bear sprray, right? [snorts] You're going to see scratches on trees. You know, you're going to sometimes hear them.
You're going to see new piles of scat on the on the trail that weren't there when you first, you know, walked in. You're like, uhoh, there's something near here. But it's beautiful. It's absolutely stunning. Wow. So, I mean, it is just so clear.
I love people who are passionate about stuff and it's just so clear how passionate you are about angling. Yeah. Like I I love it. Like I think that uh that has to be something that you get feedback from your listeners is like they must just love how much you love it. Podcasting can be a lonely business, you know. You'd think you get a million emails a week, but you don't.
You get a few, you know, and and 99% of them people say really nice things. It's like I remember a guy sent me I was listening he said I was listening to a podcast driving across the state of Michigan listening to your podcast and it reminded me of fishing with my grandfather who just passed away and he said I started to cry and I thought I made somebody cry you know tears of joy you know what I mean so that's that's like my goal I mean when you talk about your goal with the podcast where do you hope this thing goes it's just it is literally a passion project so I'm literally as long as I feel uh the joy in doing it as long as I feel like I've still got places to cover And I still got great guests to talk to. I don't think I'll run out of guests. I'm going to keep doing it. You know, it's it's really all the it's almost like the side benefits of of doing this, which are really fun. I mean, I think, you know, bringing joy to people is is great.
Uh but, you know, I get to fish all over the world with people and having friends everywhere you go. Isn't that great? Yeah. You walk in the fly shop in the middle of nowhere. Oh, hey. I was I was literally in the back country.
We we rode horses into the um into the back country of Wyoming. So we rode 12 miles in. Then we hiked another five miles in to fish some lakes. And I walked up to these two guys fishing and I said, "Hey, how you guys doing?" Turns around, looks at me. Are you Steve Heg?
[laughter] Like in the middle of nowhere. That's wild. People are listening to this podcast. You know what I mean? So this guy was all jazzed up about it. So that's fun.
Where along the journey did your f did your family realize that you had fans? Well, I know. I kind of I actually took a video. I said, "Can you say that again and tell my wife that you you are a listener and sent it to my wife and want to see people are listening it pretty early on." Wow. Where's the most underrated fly fishing destination?
I call them flyover zones. I'd say uh the Black Hills of South Dakota. I've heard fantastic things about that over and over again. The driftless area is getting more popular, but there's still plenty of room. There's 24,000 square miles to fish and thousands of trout streams and the drifless. The up I talked about before.
Wyoming is a phenomenal state for fly fishing. Not as crowded as Montana. A lot of these rivers are getting crowded. Yeah, I mean it does feel. Have you seen over the last, you know, six years since starting your podcast, there's been as an influx of people interested in fly fishing? You know, Colorado sold 90,000 uh fishing licenses in 2020.
And when 2020 first started out, the guides all thought we're going to be out of business. And then people realize about the only thing I can do is go out and hike around in the wilderness with my wife and kids cuz you're separated. And so it it just exploded for people. Wow. Fly fishing exploded. People went out and bought fly rods, bought fishing licenses.
Now it's calmed down a little bit, but it's still the numbers are up. Yeah. So, like the Madison River in um in Montana is a real famous trout stream. Guess there's a new show on Netflix about called the Madison. Oh, yeah. I haven't watched it yet.
But um that river, you know, you you may have I'll call it a bad day. You may have 70 boats getting, you know, these drift boats they use waiting to put in 70 boats. Like that's like the worst day. But you can go really early and beat the crowds or go late and beat the crowds. But nonetheless, the river gets hammered, but it's resilient. The fishing is still really good out there.
I was just out there a couple years ago. Wow. And the fishing's still good. Wow. Okay. What's been your favorite fly fishing trip?
Oh, Patagonia. Yeah. I mean, that's horseback. Like, that's pretty crazy. Yeah. Yeah.
And that was we just, hey, we want to go fishing from horseback. Cuz Tass, the lady I told you about, she loves horses. And I said, wouldn't that be cool if we fish from the back of horses? Did you catch something? Yeah, she did. I actually I let her do it.
So, Wow. Okay. What's one destination you think that every angller has to experience? Alaska. Yeah. I was in Alaska in August and uh Alaska is incredible and it's so huge, right?
And uh I mean, if you put Alaska in the United States, it would stretch all the way from the Canadian border all the way down to Texas. You think about that's how big Alaska is. Yeah. Isn't it like almost half the size of the continental the bottom 42? It's something like that. It's huge.
It's huge. So, I mean, there's just so many opportunities in Alaska. I mean, I've interviewed guys that The thing about Alaska, you're going to see bears. So, we saw bears every day when we fish and they just come walking down the river. And we're talking these are Alaskan brown bears. They get to be,200 lb.
Were you worried? Yeah. Yeah. Cuz all of a sudden, somebody across the river will see it. You don't see it yet. And they'll go, "Hey, there's a bear coming your way."
You're like, "Okay." and you start looking and all of a sudden it rounds the corner and it's like 50 yards from you and their heads are like this big around and it's that shock and that awe feeling. I mean, I can't tell you seeing a bear that big up close and what do you do? You get away. You you get away from the river. But I know from talking to these guides that they're not interested in you.
They're interested in the salmon that are in the river. So, I hear that over and over again that guides that are, you know, fishing for salmon and big rainbows in Alaska that the bears really leave them alone. Doesn't mean that you won't get charged occasionally. You know, I've had guys tell me they've they've been charged. like there was a guy was fishing with his wife and he said that uh they were in some brush and uh and they they heard some rumbling and all a sudden this bear charges out of the brush and that was a false charge and a little stop and sometimes it turn around and do it two or three times and he said he could smell its breath. It was that close.
I said, "Has your wife been fishing with you again?" He said, "No." [laughter] I mean, I would need a fresh change of pants. Like, holy smokes. I mean it that would be seeing these bears up close. It would be absolutely fright.
You know there's just some guy a couple guys attacked in Yellowstone just like a week ago. Oh wow. Yeah. Do you think on these trips it comes from getting a little too overconfident and trying to like get close or is it just sometimes you're sometimes you're unlucky? Sometimes you're unlucky. I think well the the first time I went out there I took my son and his friend and my and his dad the dad and we were going to go to Colorado but that year Colorado 2002 Colorado was on fire basically.
So all right let's go to Montana. And I remember calling out there and saying oh would I have to worry about bears? No unless you do something stupid. And I'm well stupid. Well like you know being down in in tall grass in the middle of the day. Why is that stupid?
Well that's where they sleep in the middle of the day. I like that lush tall grass where it's, you know, nice and cool. Oh, didn't know that. Yeah. So, you start learning what stupid things are around bears. It's like, yo, yeah.
Well, now it's like, yeah, what is stupid? There's like a qualification there. Wait, do you put on the waiters and stand out in the water or do you drift on a boat or like what? Both. Yeah. Yeah.
Is it predominantly one or the other? Um, well, if you're with a guide, uh, most of the time you're floating. We call it float or wade. So, you're floating in a drift boat typically. And um that's a lot of fun. Particularly if you're a new angller, that's going to simplify things a lot for you being in the boat.
In the boat. Yeah. It's a lot easier. Um and then I like waiting because I can really pick apart a stream and really, you know, kind of dissect it and get everything that's in there. Wow. I love it.
What's the the prime time? Like what time of day is prime for catching fish? It's usually, you know, morning and evenings is when you go fishing, you know, but but when there's a hatch on, a hatch meaning there's insects hatching, these are typically um may flies or catis flies or stone flies if they're coming off the river. You want to be there when that's going on. Like right now in Michigan, there's a hatch called the Hendrickson hatch. I was up there last week.
We didn't see any bugs. It's just too cold. But um when the weather warms up a little bit, those come off like 1 to 5:00. So if you go out at 10, not going to see any bugs. You want to be out there in the middle of the day. That's when those big fish are going to come up because they're going to be attracted to eat these.
These are easy cheeseburgers floating down the top of the river, right? This is a can conveyor belt of food. You know, other other hatches, they're, you know, morning hatches or evening hatches. It just depends. Wow. Yeah.
Is there any destinations in Indiana that people need to go check out to fish? You go find a blue line that what you want to find is What is it? Blue line. Blue line. You know, if you look on a map, all the rivers are are in blue. Oh, yeah.
Any So just any river. Yeah. Any any any creek, right? As long as it's doesn't dry up in the summertime. Even in the spring, even if it does dry up in the summer, there'll still be there'll be smallmouth in there. And you have a great time.
In Indiana, you do got to get permission, right? You can't just, you know, you can't just go stumbling through somebody's property on their creek, but it's not that hard. You know, there's tons and tons of water. But Sugar Creek, uh, is fantastic. I've done a podcast on Sugar Creek. a guy named Chad Miller who's a local guide who who's really really knowledgeable about smallmouth fishing.
Wow. Do you have a uh dream guest to come on your podcast? I interviewed the the CEO of Trout Unlimited recently. Really sharp guy. We did a show just on conservation for Trout Unlimited, Chris Wood. And then I just um met Kirk Deer who's a a famous guy.
He writes the number one publication in trout fishing. It's just called Trout Magazine. It's put out by Trout Unlimited. And he's just a great guy. So, we're going to we're going to talk next week. Heck yeah.
So, I keep getting, you know, there's so many great guests out there and a lot of times I just don't know about them. Wow. You know, what advice do you have for new anglers? Well, if you want to go fly fishing, um I would first borrow some equipment. Don't go out don't go in checkbook first until you're sure it's something you like because it can get expensive. Like a nice fly rod's at least 250 bucks.
Okay? And a a good, you know, I got one that's about $400 or $500. I don't buy the $1,200 rods. So, borrow some equipment. Go out with somebody who knows what they're doing. Just go find a a farm pond or a all these ponds in these neighborhoods.
They all got fish in them. You're going to catch bluegill. You're going to catch some bass. The birds bring them in there. And um just go out and try it and see if you like it. Um and then, um if you do, if you really want to get into it, I'd call I'd call one of these like Moving Waters Fly Shop here in town.
It's over in Zansville. uh they've got guides and um go out and fish a day with a guide and uh go smallmouth fishing, right? And you float one of these beautiful Indiana streams when the when the water, you know, the spring rains are over. The water looks brown and green from a distance, but really that's the color of the bottom. They they're not it's not like this ugly dirty water. A lot of times it's crystal clear, beautiful water that you're fishing over and it just looks green because of what's on the bottom and you'll find it's just beautiful.
You'll see a lot of wildlife. Wow. You catch some fish. It does seem peaceful. I love it. Well, there's a lot I've interviewed a lot of people where fly fishing has saved them.
Literally saved them. There's a guy who runs a fly shop down in North Georgia. His name's Big T. And he was an alcoholic. He was drinking a a a case of beer a day. I'm This guy is was 300 pounds and he it was killing him and he knew it.
And one day he was driving over a trout stream, crossed the trout stream uh over a bridge and he looked down and he watched this guy like this rhythmic casting back and forth and he just thought that looks really cool and he he went and bought a fly rod that same day and the next day he was out fly fishing and he's never looked back and he and he quit drinking that day. So he's got an addictive personality. Yeah. So now he's addicted to fly fishing, right? I mean, hey, not a bad thing to be addicted to. That's right.
I mean, you're Yeah. You're talking about the the recreation, the nature, the peacefulness, the rhythmic motion that just, you know, it's it is something that could, you know, be good for the brain, especially at a time where, you know, I feel like we're always connected to something on the internet or some sort of, you know, the whatever the next dopamine hit is. Yeah. To just get out there and, you know, talk. Turn the phone off. Turn the phone off.
Don't worry about taking pictures, you know, let your guide take a picture, you know, just turn the phone off. I love it. Just get away from all that. Are there any unwritten rules of fly fishing that we need to know? Like things not to break. Like if it's your first time going out there, like, hey, you better not Well, don't cross lines with somebody.
You You've done a good job. You have yet to call a fly rod a pole. Good job. Ah, it's a rod. Don't It's a It's a fly rod. It's a fly rod.
It's not a pole, right? Yeah. So, uh, but it doesn't matter what you call it. uh unwritten you know with the you know river especially trout streams getting more and more crowded there's a lot of etiquette rules I'd say but nobody's written a book about this but you know if you're going to jump in a river you know and it looks you go and there's a guy near you like within 50 yards of you go talk to him first and usually you'll find the guy's like yeah no problem or just ask which way you going up or down and okay I'll go the other way or no I'm heading down that way okay got you and you go find another spot but that stuff just doesn't happen often Uh people will just jump in there. It's just obnoxious to do that. Uh you just Yeah.
Have a conversation. Have a conversation with And you know what? You'll meet typically five fishermanmen are great people. I found it's a great community of folks. Really old souls, wonderful people. And um and you may make a new friend.
There we go. I love it. Well, we've come to the end of the show where we ask our guests the same three questions uh all about Indiana. But uh and before we get into that, I have one more, too. This question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond.
Check them out at homejcart. com. My question for you, why do you call Indiana home? Well, cuz I was transferred here many years ago and we ended up I I worked for Owens Corning Fiberglass years ago and I was in Louisville in um Eastern Kentucky and there wasn't a lot of business out there and uh they transferred me to Indianapolis and we just liked it and I got married, you know, that was in the early 80s. We got married, we just stayed there, found a a church that we liked and uh still going to the same place. You haven't looked back.
Haven't looked back. Three kids, three kids, you know, it's been a great plot. All right, next for you. What is your favorite Indiana memory? Maybe coaching kids in soccer all these years. You know, I was a wreck league coach.
I didn't know squat about coaching soccer and I quit yelling at him after I started playing some indoor soccer. Oh wow. You know, it's a lot easier to say than do. You know, you the you know this, why are they walking in fourth quarter because they're tired, you know, they're not professional athletes. Don't yell at them. Yeah, that's fair.
Okay. Now, this is your opportunity to shed some light on a part of the state that more people need to be talking about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana? Right out your back door, folks. There there is a there is a smallmouth stream right out your back door that you didn't even know. You've been driving over it all your life.
And I bet most people in Indiana live within 5 miles of a smallmouth bass. I'll just put that out there. And uh I'd say that hidden gem is Yeah. Right there in your back door. Smallmouth fishing in Indiana. There you go.
There we go. Okay. Change your life. Final question. Yeah. This is where we identify new guests for the podcast and learn about other people that are doing cool things.
Who's a Hooser we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. This guy I I just met last week from Trout Unlimited. Yeah, we call him Q. He's a lawyer and now he works for Trout Unlimited and um he's he's putting together engagement for all the Trout Un limited chapters and there's one in every state. Wow.
Even though we don't have a lot of trout in Indiana and uh his name's Q and he's doing a fantastic job. So, I'm going to be fishing with Q this afternoon. I mean, you guys are going to come down the White River. Let's go. We are. I love it.
Um, one final kind of question specifically to Destination Angler. If listeners of our show want a good starting point for your show, a good episode to get them, you know, used to you, used to, the type of content you're putting out, where would you have them start? Well, if you want to, if you want to laugh a lot, I would go back a couple years and look up the Pens Creek uh episode I did in Coburn, Pennsylvania. Um, uh, the guy who runs a fly shop out there is hilarious. So, you will you will laugh your your butt off if you listen to that one. Okay.
Um, and then more recently, I mean, the Patagonia shows live right now. And I just did a show on the Drifless that we talked about. So, those two shows would be, you know, if you want something local and then something really international and really fun and interesting, a bucket list place, there you go. I love it. All right. And where can people find your show?
Uh, where can they find you? Where can they follow along, see the content? the whole nine yards. So, um, Destination Angler podcast on Instagram, on Facebook, uh, and my YouTube channel, the same thing. And, um, so full video on YouTube, obviously, and then we're, um, all over just all the different podcast locations for audio. Yeah.
Spotify, Apple, everything else. The Destination Angler Fly Fishing Podcast. I absolutely love I'm going to subscribe on YouTube right now. There you go, Steve. It's been a pleasure to hang out and learn so much about fly fishing. What I can tell you is the reason that it's working is because you're so passionate about angling.
Like you are so passionate about your craft, learning more, asking questions and sharing that. You talked about like, you know, the circle of life when it comes to being an angller is, you know, you realization is sharing that that feeling with others and watching them, you know, catch fish. So, I love it, man. Keep up the good work. Go check out his podcast. Uh we appreciate you stopping by and giving us some uh some hints to a good some good Indiana honey holes.
We'll talk to you soon. Sounds good. Thanks, Nate. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at [music] Sweetwater. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle.
[music] Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hooer State great. We'll see you next time here on Get
