Episode #35: Papa Dave Merrill Talks about Raising David to Hunt and Fish

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Show Notes: 

RAD Cast Outdoors Episode #35: Papa Dave Merrill Talks about Raising David to Hunt and Fish

00:00:00 - 00:05:01

This episode of rad cast outdoors is brought to you in part by. Pk lures pk. Lures make some of the best fishing lures on the market. They're high quality lures. Shine when others. Don't help you put fish in the boat or on the ice consistently i've been using peak taylor successfully now for over twelve years and i can personally attest to their effectiveness. When i'm ice fishing you can bet that. I have a pk. Dot glow digging spoon or a fire tiger glow digging spoon tight on one of my rods. They've helped catch many high quality fish of various species from season to season my favorite hard water lures the pk spoon pk. Flutter fish and tungsten predator for open water. I love the. Pk spinach pk. Dakota disk and the next generation. Pk ridgeline crank bait this past season. I was introduced to the pk. Warbler which is also a really effective fish-catching machine from the boat. They also have some incredible videos on their website. Pk lured dot com to show you exactly how to use these wonderful lures. So if you wanna have a little more success out on the water and you want to help support a great company please go to p. keilor dot com again. That's pk lure dot com and get your pk lures today. And please tell them that. The rag cast outdoors podcasts. Since you sean rad cast is on putting fishing and everything in between this is red. Cast outdoor from the porter's ten cast studio here are david merrill and patrick edwards. Hello and welcome. Radio land back to rod cast outdoors. We're back inside from the great outdoors to sit down and have another discussion about fishing. And everything in between i'm here with myself and patrick edwards. How's everybody doing and we've got another guest in the studio today. I guess i'll go ahead and introduce them. It's a it's mr merrill. Some of you do know or have heard of him on the podcast. he's he's been Brought up once or twice. Hello yeah we've well. I've heard stories about you on this podcast a couple of times so this is david's dad. So welcome to the podcast. How you doing. I'm doing great. I go by dave so and he goes by david. Let's get that straight all right. Well i'm going to have a david david in here. I'll i'll try to keep it straight as best i can so i've heard stories that You took david. Our news pretty darned small to go go fishing and recreating in the outdoors. So about about what age did you start taking him out. You know i. I remember one time. I took him out. It was I had a little chevy love pickup. There were four wheel drive but he was worthless to go hardly anywhere but it was. It was a pick of. I had and i took him I went fly fishing up a little stream with a friend of mine. And so we had the car seat in the middle of the truck and in his bench seat so we strapped him in there and it was tight but we drove up and he fell asleep on the way up. Because you know has been bumpy road. And he fell asleep and so we got there. And we stopped a little dirt road little fifa whitestream running there and we got out went fishing and catching a few little brookies and whatever and fly fishing and so he went fishing with. He woke up sometime during the time we were fishing and was not happy that he was stuck in his car seat. He was about eighteen months. Old drake sage home. And of course you don't remember any of that. I'm sure that. I do not remember being abused as a child force fly-fishing endeavors that. I did not want to go on but that sets a precedence for the next eighteen years of david's fishing career. I'm excited to hear your kids stories when they get older about dad taking them hunting. Because i'm sure there's gonna be a few of those. There's a picture of my oldest one asleep in the saddle on a horse. Elkin doubled over holding onto the word. So i finally pulled off later on the ground on my jacket but yeah there's gonna be. Some dad forced me to go hunting. Well i i have a little bit of a theory and that is that it becomes to easy. David caught fish when he was two and a half three four five. There's pictures of him with whole fish. You know that a lot of people would be very jealous of at as an adult and it just was. We went fishing and caught a fish. And you know it was it was celebrated and we had a good time but fishing was no there was no challenge to there was no mystery or but there was. We went hunting. But we really shot a few dear but we really. That was not a passion of mine. You know stream over there. We're going fishing. We're we're driving hunting. Oh let's go fishing nets this guy's torius for when we go our trio cutting. He almost always has a couple of flies. A little bit of leader rolled up ziplock. Back when we're backpacking in midday. The rest of us are taking a nap so that we can. You know hunt hard again that evening guys over there. He's cut a willow. He's fishing in a stream. That's a foot wide. Yeah but nobody's fish that stream in the last ninety days and those fisher a really hungry and you know it doesn't take much to catch. That's true that i'm the same way.


00:05:01 - 00:10:02

If i go by a body of water the first thing i think of is what's in there and then the next thought is how can i fix it so i get it totally get it but you know dad was touching on the premise of an i member in the oilfield talking to a kid who grew up in star valley and his dad was outfitter and you know he went up on the thoroughfare and killed like three ninety bowl in highschool. He'd never had any desire to go. Elk hunting after that in the premise of your passion doesn't usually transcend to your kids. Your kids kinda go. i'm going to. I've done that before. I graduated high school. I had several dozen steel head on the wall done. That was check that box. Let's go do something different. You know and put a little a little perspective around. Several dozen steelhead average time to catch a steelhead in oregon. Where we lived was about forty hours. So if you're going to catch a steelhead it's it's you know you go out fishing for eight hours. Typically most people didn't catch a steelhead. Now i wasn't as good as some of the guys that were there fish steelhead. But i was. You know we could go out. And every other trip we'd we'd at least play a steelhead in a lot of times we land. Sometimes we'd come home with two in the same trip by. There was a lot of times that we would pick up to steelhead coming home. And it's like well you know we didn't get hit three of us in the boat and we didn't get the third one but that was mostly past. How much did you catch any seal it on. We didn't we didn't even have a bite and they'd floated the same stretch of river. We had i mean it was. I moved to oregon in the in the late eighties and shortly thereafter wandered around at work. Where i go. Fishing in oregon was totally different than than utah where i'd grown up and spent time and so it was. I got well you go talk to don. And don was in the northwest steel headers and that was northwest steel headers. Was you know they met once a month and a bunch of old guys told him fish stories but they were telling you along three stores you got. Here's here's a how you back back. Back bound for for for salmon in the river and the guys that were you know. That's all they wanna do. Is fish the chinook salmon cup river. We've fish mostly. The south of am ended up by a santa. Am drifter drift boat. Which was a little bit of an all fiberglass drift boat but it was pretty light and so it was. It was fun to row. In fact i still have that. Vote in alaska and finally put a new floor in this this last year. So that was a fiberglass project. I worked on. So but that's the inkling of my one one one nine a month. Every month i went and hung out with my dad at the northwest steel headers club. I was the only kid there with all these seventy year old or fifty year. Old tell you shannon those are the guys that are the bears of lots and lots of knowledge that they pass along with half. The reason why took him was that the the old guys wanted to show this this young kid how to go fishing. I'm slowly so we got invited on a few drift volt trips that normally people didn't go. I mean there was a there was a few guys there that they caught fish every trip. They took the boat down the river. I mean it sold you know. Twenty percent of the fishermen catch eighty percent of the fission would go down the river with heat. He had been down that river so many times he knew every hole and he knew i mean he knew where the fish were in every hole at every floor level of the river so when the float float over change the fish moved around a little bit me. No well you know today. The flow is pretty high. He would only go when the if the river level was above it. I don't remember that the gates numbers anymore but when when the level guy he wouldn't go fishing because it was the fish we're on the bottom the river and it was very difficult to get your ear down there but we would go down the river and he'd below. We're going to get a fish about right here. And then you know. Ma'am there goes to the rod is like what is that a fish on remote control you know but it was just you know local knowledge of. Here's the way the river looks. And here's where all the fish are. One thing i remember learning specifically with salmon and this is something our listeners can king lean is you can go to the store and you can buy row and you can go fishing with and occasionally catch a salmon what that fresh radio and specifically one guy that i started steelhead fishing with that was just a guru. I mean he fished fifty weekends a year for steelhead and there was some days we put more more steelhead than most people would believe in a boat what i mean his eggs his row in his his rule in the boat. Was you know you take your fish. But the stays with the boat and you glove up to touch that row. He he did all that. And i think the olfactory glands sense glenn's sam annoyed he. His bait outperformed a lot of other bates. Yeah if you do the research on those fish they have extremely good senses of smell. And i mean it's it's incredible. How much better a trout for instance can smell than walleye. I mean there's no comparison at all. I mean it's off the charts. How well they can smell. So you're right. I mean that family of fish smell is a huge deal. So if you foul something up you probably not going to catch him. And i remember just you know. It's been a couple of seasons ago but we were fishing the canine alaska. They'd open bait and we had a pretty decent running kings and i took a bunch of roa- from sakai prepared at the same way. Made sure we only use gloves to touch it. And we slade. Those fish i mean. We are outperforming. Fifty other boats sitting on the river around us. And it's that good fresh baked instead of that. Six months old store bought stuff.


00:10:02 - 00:15:11

How do you prepare that typically. Because i know everybody's got a different recipe. I've seen guys that used saul sugar borax all kinds of different things to kind of make them harden up and cure up to where they'll sit on a hook for one but what are you typically do with eggs. You go to get the fish. We're catching sakai that day. And then i'm buying the store-bought roker either. Procure your care following instructions putting right on iraq outside but with gloves laying on the rack sprinkl it air dry a little bit on both sides for about twelve hours. You know sprinkler because a lot of people just sprinklers throwing a bag you want to get somewhat firm so when you go to put it on the on the hook it stays there but you wanna have quite a bit of milk and juice and sent coming off that you don't want it so dry like jerky that when you put it on there. Yeah it's on there. But i mean you got to think about that row. Naturally in the river floating down the river in out of maybe a salmon that a bear eight. Or and i'm i'm not one hundred percent certain y salmon even eat egg that that seems a little bit As far as a species. That doesn't help the species. Procreate that you know. I've always wondered the same thing like you see the guys up in the great lakes when the browns come in to spawn they you sponsor to catch him and i'm always like why would they do that. It just doesn't we'll have to do some research on that and figure that out. Because i'm not really sure bet you. It's competition between something right. You want your your offspring to and not your your your neighbors but again we go back to those king salmon and the way i prepare that rose you know i let it air dry just a little bit until it gets a little thick skin on the outside and then throw it in the bag in the fridge and let it sit there for twenty four and then go use stuff know. Wanna let it sit there for two three weeks if it's gonna be that long. Put it in a mason jar put in the freezer and that then you'll have to thought out the day before you wanna use it. But that's typically. When i went fishing that guy in oregon. We had in a one or two bags of yesterday's that had been thought and then we'd grab one or two jars out of the freezer. Sometimes we'd go through four to six majors. I mean when when that rose bad you throw it off and put new on and the biggest thing i'll say is with steelhead. You want about a dime sized gob of of aches and what i found with the sockeye eggs or a really big and they're kind of loose skinned they don't they wouldn't if you try to cut it in that size. It just wouldn't work for those king salmon. You want about it at least a quarter size if not a fifty cent piece of eggs so you know the interesting. There's a nursing story there about david and that king salmon trip because we were there fishing and i wasn't on the board at the time but he he got had his king added in the net and the net was flipped over so the lip was down instead of up and the king salmon decided to flip in the net and flopped out of the net and had d. hooked itself on the net which is normal. Fish gets in the time they pull the lookout. That's the closest i've seen him. He was still crying about that when he come back hours later. I would've been cryan to. I'd have been in the fetal position on the floor we we. We'll discuss later. Who who had to handle the net. And who had the handle the rod but we'll say it was a husband and wife team and that almost caused the divorce. I think we have talked about now. There are tears. Shed over-fish that every year on the keanae the so we were fishing for reds. And we're fishing down on one of the cut banks. We'd like to fish for whatever reason we hooked a halfway decent king and we can tell is a king and the king just just decided fish. Act completely different. You hook us akai and it flops. On top of the water and you know basically stays within six feet of shore. You hook one of those bigger fish. It goes the middle the river and goes sits in the bottom. And you can't move it. A king owns you. And so you're there and you're fishing with you know i mean we're runnin heavy leader. We're running like twenty pound leader and and forty pound mainline. You know you get to this kings on the from the shores is that's a. That's a pretty tough accomplishment. While with twenty pound leader you might as well be saying a prayer because it's probably not going to happen. Hook decent sized king when i was fishing keanae and i had twenty pound leader on. Guess what i he. He broke me off. I part of it was. I couldn't let him go any further than he was going 'cause he was going to get me all fouled up and everybody else and i was like well put the brakes on and there you go nap. Who said you know what we hop in the boat. The next time that happens and see if we land that fish so fishing in the same hot there in brunei. I hook into to a king salmon and i i know it's a king and david scott up grabbed the boat. He's come down on the boat. It was it was pure chaos and pandemonium there for about five minutes. Well so i'm standing here. I'm standing in about six hundred. Eighty eight water. You know fighting the fish and all of a sudden. The boat comes down the river by me. I'm trying to get in. And all of a sudden i get this claw that just grabs. Hold onto the back of my waiters and pulls me in. And i'm upside down. The of the vote really still tips up still really because i just reached as a passed him by the boat crammed his jacket to said. We're gonna get this fish you know and i did. I did have the presence of mind to keep the rod tip up and keep a little pressure little bit like a turtle on its back kind of wondering what happened but anyway then then you know this is first time.


00:15:11 - 00:20:05

We'd had a king on a boat so we had to learn how to drive the boat. Fish circle the boat about three times figured out. Now you kinda got to steer the boat. You keep the boat in gear in on you. Don't you're not trying to go upstream you. Just trying to maintain position were slowly float down and then you keep the fish downstream of you. So he's got to fight the current as well. You know if you try. Just keep up with him now. You're in a lake instead of a river and he just keeps trying to go underneath the boat for safety and so yeah that was. That was kind of fun to learn that lesson out. But this goes back to one of the things i've said about a long time and that is how do you learn how to catch big fish. That is you lose big fish. Oh yeah and that's there's there's there's so many things that you have to learn about about how to catch a big fish in it you know. It's like sockeye salmon. When the fish comes out of the water you have to bow to the fish. Basically by that. I mean you have to take the pressure off your rod and bowyer rod to the fish because officials back in the water. He's suddenly got a whole bunch of extra energy. That's going to go somewhere. Officials gonna dart some direction when he goes back in order and you don't know which direction is a lotta times if you don't bother the fish big fish and he comes out he's gonna break your line off because all of a sudden you gotta sue dexter but if you give him a little bit of slack in that moment that he enter the water you have a good chance to stay attached and you know maybe land that fish. I've had that happen with about thirty inch. Brown i hooked him and he went and he made a huge jump. And i wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for thirty inch. Brown to hit my line for one thing. And i had six pound tests so didn't have a whole lot to to give him any any of the business. You know what i mean. So he came out of the water and just like you said i mean he hit that thing running and snap my line. Nothing flat part of it was wasn't really fishing stuff that real great for landing thirty inch brown. But that's the way it goes. The alaska state record on the keanae for king. Salmon is a is a bank catch less anderson. I think caught when they finally waited. It's in the nineties but yeah they said it lost a pound or more while he was driving around. So it's a big fish. I think lake prehistoric monster while they all do you get get anything over twenty forty pound fish. That's a. It's like fighting goliath out there man. That's a humongous fish. I can't even imagine. I mean just trying to pick a fish like that could be a struggle let alone trying to fight one. I mean you when you go to grab you know. We're used to those bigger fish. You grab around the base of the tail right and when it's like trying to grab around your calf you can't get your hand grip and it's just like i need to hands old. I could remember. We did a lot of Volunteer spawning for the steelhead program. There in oregon and i was a young teenager twelve to fourteen. I'd get in the in the catch when it was time to help do that. Spawning in. We did that volunteer. There's a couple of those steelhead in the bigger bucks in the thirty inch. Category thirty to forty inch that i couldn't lift out of the pollen. I mean they start going and you know and they're powerful. I mean geez. It's like grabbing something. That's just full electricity. I mean they're so strong. That was a an amazing experience of just be part of that whole you know and it was a volunteer effort. We will help. The they would spawn steelhead about three or four times in in between december and ended december really end of january. There'd be three or four spines out. They would corral all the fish up and kinda kinda handle the fish and they sort of few of them and then they would once over ripe. You know you'd spot him and that was just to see that whole thing. That was just magical. You know to be part of that. See that many fish. I mean that's especially being from. They took all the eggs and incubates them. And then they. They had all these different pollens of hatchlings. They'd feed them to fingerlings and then they turned them loose. And those are the ones when they're adults you get to keep right. Yeah so they would take. They had a system that would cut the adipose spinoff. Which is the in between the tail and dorsal fin. They'd cut that off until you could tell that it was a hatchery fish versus wild fish and they had a wild run. They were trying to protect their but they were supplementing. That with hatchery fish. And that was a result of they put a some dams in there. They said they had to do that. And they they also were were transporting they would catch all the sam steelhead that come up on the wild fish they would basically truck around the damn truck around the dam in the spawners. Were be taken out of the system. So they didn't want him spawning. So i went to that dam on the columbia and they had that little system off to the side where the fish kinda worked their way through. I don't know it was kind of interesting because you could actually go inside and you could see him through the glass migrating their way through. They had some kind of channel or something that they gonna build. Damn bonneville dam. Yeah and it was. It was kinda cool to watch that. But i know a lot of them now. You know whether they're netting them and trucking them around or whatever but they have a lotta different efforts the big effort on the bonneville on that river system was. They're they're actually trucking the fingerlings on their out-migration migration don't get chewed up through the damn.


00:20:06 - 00:25:02

Well it's the increased nitrogen levels in the water causes issues with the fish. And then the other thing you have happened is. Is that kind of stunned. The fingerling or the the smoltz out might out migrating and they are then very vulnerable to predators. You'll see huge. Swarms of calls in stuff gathered there trying to catch a free meal. Well there's a lot of predators to. I mean like i know. The columbia river is now known for some of the biggest walleye in the world. You know there's there's guys that go up there every year now and catch a twenty pound walleye which is crazy to me like i think about ten pound wallet being big and you got these guys catching up fourteen to twenty pounds and i mean what do you think they eat. I mean they're going to eat whatever fits in their mouth. So if you get that big a lot fits in your mouth your walleye so i'm sure there should be a little bit more vulnerable. That's why there's no limit on wall in that river either them all cut. Tell me a little bit more about raising boys and taking taking them out on these fishing trips and kinda give our audience just a few of the tips of what do you think makes you trip with kids so with with kids. I think it's always about. They've got a shorter attention span. They can't they're not going to tolerate trying to fish for steelhead for for eight hours and not catching a fish. That's taking kids. Steelhead is is. Fishing is is pretty Riskier you're gonna you're gonna have to have some way to entertain them besides fission we've talked about this a little bit. It's it's akin to taking them trophy game hunting right and setting the expectation of what we're going to go shoot a record bucker bowl or whatever start smaller. Go rabbit hunting right start. Smaller go go perch fishing blue. Go fishing yeah. Anything bad something. A fish species. That's a little more reclusive to being caught well and closer to the house. Maybe something like that. But part of it is is One of the things that that that i did on on a couple of those trips was there was a spot. Halfway down the river that we would stop take with the steelhead pulls away. We would take out fly polls and we would fish for for whatever was in a couple of spots on the river. There was like where we could fly fishing. Catch a few little fish and turn them loose. So that was okay. We're we're soon to that spot or a kid growing up the other thing. My parents did it. You know it's which i thought. Was you grow up groping you these things you know that are happening in your family. That driving down the road okay. Can you see any dear. Can you see any dear. My brothers amazingly at spotting critters. But you know as kids we're up on top of the camper of the gambro cab over things you can do today and watch it for deer and we bang on one side of the roof. We saw alcon deer on one side the road or the other whatever. It wasn't until i got to have kids my own. I realized having your kids look for deer and elk was more to entertain the kids than it was to see the tear but so now i took david. Fishing was about probably ten and his brother was probably a couple of years younger than that. Fly-fishing up One little streams. This was right after we moved to oregon. Look at life on this little stream and we were there fishing and it was june july midsummer. David heads flagpole. He was ski was fishing there and he stepped up to to log right next to the river. And there was a Hornets nest in the ground. And he stepped on the hortus with horses flew up and they got inside his cargo shorts and started to his lakes. Ouch bald faced hornets. By the way to mean and then Chit occurred me for fishing. The rest of my life right wake you up. That's for sure so anyway. He was standing there. He's jumping up and down now on the ground slapping his legs because some finally got him to run out of there but then it was an interesting drive home there. I was worried about okay. Does he going go into shock. Here what am i gonna do. You know any the most things. Go through your mind about. Luckily i did have some benadryl with me. And i had i said here. Take a couple of benadryl so he kind of went to sleep but it was kind of going okay. You know. but that's that's one of those all of a sudden you know it was. It was a fun trip and then it was turned into a whole different situation as a parent. You some concerns there but it was. I wanna go back in touch on those steelhead trips. Where we we would stop in about the biggest rapids on the whole float and put the steel head gear away and pull out the you know the five. Wait flyer odds and go cat. We're catching smoltz. Let's be honest here. It was it was mostly smoltz. And it was all catch-and-release i was able to you know instead of when when we're still at fishing was a lot of back bouncing or or plugs or spinners and it was a very low catch rate when you put a small fly on in those rapids where those fingerlings are at. We're catching a dozen fishing in fifteen twenty minutes of fish. Now they were four to six inches twenty and thirty. Maybe up to four inches. But i really look forward to getting to that spot of the river every time because i get to get out of the boat and just go walk around and be actually get to catch fish. There's time i've been muskie fishing most keyser maddening like steelhead. I mean they're they're really hard. To catch and you'd be tiger muskie fishing get tired of that and stop for a few minutes to catch a few pan fish.


00:25:02 - 00:30:01

That's kind of a nice break. You know it's like oh. I still can catch a fish because you start to doubt yourself as a fisherman. You go a long time without catching something. it's like. oh man. I need a confidence boost. Here let's go find some blue gillers perch and that goes back to when there was. There's a skilled fishing in in a lot of people. You know it's it's it's not. Just i put my bait on my hook and put my hook out there and i catch a fish a lot of times on the on the russian river. Wanna go up there and fish. It's elbow to elbow fishing. I'm not quite able to its pole to pole fishing and if they crown yet you know it gets tighter than that. But when you're standing in a line of a conga line that everybody's lined up there fishing near the only one that catching fish pretty soon you have lots of friends and their spot or or this is the best one is. It's the color of the yarn is using. We gotta go get your yard. Yeah those are the guys that are the first ones to grab a net to help you get your fish so that they can get you out of the way so they can catch fish yard. I used that tactic more than one. It's smart right. I mean it's it's like well you're doing really well let me help you. Bet your fish. But there are some skills in fishing that transcend species locations. And i mean it comes down to have noticed guys from the pacific northwest that go fish to keanae that have some steelhead background. They tend to do very well and people who don't have that specific skill set of that type of you know when you're when you're drifting a corky through a hole and you've got to differentiate between pounce on the bottom and a just a nibble those those steelhead can have the ever softest just to just mouth that great but the cadence of the balance of your weight along the bottom stops in as a fisherman. Ms at the hook here now. Sometimes it can be hung up on a stick or another piece of line but sometimes it could be a fish. Cup grab that corky and is paused and taking that skill and going red fishing the same thing. Yeah you don't have the corky on there but that hook is paused from its cadence floating downstream. Because it's inefficient mouth and you need to set that hook and the other thing i've found is a lot of gama. Got two hooks on that river. You know nice shark. Quality steel hooks. When i take newbies up there you know we by the The the bucket dozen cheaper hooks because they're going through hooks. I mean you're either getting hung up on the bottom of your brain hooks fish and so but i'll bipolar. you'll notice that. I've got gama cots and keep them sharp but a couple of times in august when it's slower fishing and i even if i got so you run that across the rocks enough. You've either got a barb on your hook or you've just told the point. And all all tickle to fish have set the hook in the mouth can feel the fish and then it comes off after about three head shakes. What's going on here police hookup and try and stick it in your nail and it won't stick in you sharpen that hook or put a new hook on and the very next cast your land. Another fish know the other thing we learned when i was really young. Dad took me to alaska. We went to prince of wales island. And never did. He's done a couple of good news floats. And that's a ten day float trip with a kid. I think that would be a little maddening for for both parties involved. But but the prince of wales trips that we did was a cabin on a salmon stream with with hopi. And we learned there. You know i would tie flies all spring to get ready to go on that trip and we'd go with sometimes. Two thousand flies of different varieties and types and lengths. I don't know if we ever got quite to two thousand but we had. We would have a very full fly box because you didn't know what they were gonna hit and in the couldn't by any flies really but it was you know so we had a lot of perks. Purposely had suddenly leeches. And then you know some other stuff but there was a whole activity of. We spent six months getting ready for tying flies and you know at a fly bench in my room and i'd come home from school and i'd tie flies getting ready to go just a couple. You know maybe a dozen tonight. But what i remember is in alaska on the third fish you would break down fly off and losing. Almost you know almost every time so on the after you cut your second fish you clip the not rely that fly. You're not going to the store and getting anymore flies. And if they're hitting that specific fly for whatever reason you know i remember. We caught a few Flounder on shrimp pattern. Right out at tidewater. I threw it out there and kind of let it drift on the bottom after a week of eating in humphries really excited founder. Some some flavor of fish and they're good now that trip but that whole trip encompassing we went to one cabin. We stayed there. We day hike from their fishing in. When i was tired or wet or cold we could go get in the cabinet and get warmed up and dried out on a progressive float trip through alaska. You get wet and cold. You're wet and cold for a day or two until you. Dry your gear out so you warm up but sometimes it takes awhile. That's those are really two very different experiences. But they're both afloat trooper like on the good news. Where it's you know you've got sixty river miles to go in ten days.


00:30:01 - 00:35:05

It's more than you can travel in one day i mean so we it was a leisurely place. I mean we'd get up every morning. We'd cook breakfast. We tear tense down. We'd pack everything up and then we'd loden rafts and we had to rafts and yeah me on that flow trip intended as we saw a ten people besides the people who come with us you know. I mean there was no. I think we talked to them there. Some we saw. We didn't even talk to they. Just kinda were off in the distance a little bit so pretty much the group you went with but it was now. The interesting thing about that trip was that there was really no trees around. It was that far north but there was a lot of tall grass on tundra but there was tall grass right next to the river but there was this eighteen inch wide up and down both sides of the river. That was just beautiful. You know it'd been on. The grass had been packed down. There was an eighteen inch wide path. And you kinda went. What what what. What was that well that. What was the grizzly bears. Were coming from you know miles around that they were feeding on the on the silver fish we went in august and the reds and mostly gone up. Funny story there when we the what are the guys we went with. They were supposed to have one foot plano. Take all of us at once while that full plane was down so it was down to two trips and split to gear amongst to those planes instead of one plane. We're yeah we're all there was two of us weren't quite as okay. We're not going to jump up and down about a week. We stayed behind and three guys were just raring to go. They hopped in polk. Took the gear and left and and as we turned around and walked back. We just started laughing because here sitting with a pile was the pile of fishing poles. All fishing poles were packed with us jobs. A three eager beavers. We'll take the first plane and and we'll get out there we'll go. We'll volunteer to be. I didn't volunteer fruit. I and set camp up and get the raft setup. No they're going to go fix it and they'll do all that stuff later. They were gonna pull the wraps up and everything and so but the funny part was okay. So here we're flying in. There's these red shoals on good news lake. There's these red shoals these rituals are red salmon. I mean there was literally thousands on you could see the colored the edge of the lake rid and the one guy who is just so competitive always had to catch a fish. He was out there. He had taken the spares twenty pound line of pool. You know just a tight. Something on there was out there trying to catch a fish it was. It's kind of like when you wake up for for your nap. Elk hunting and you look over. And here's a guy that's cut. Willow cut with six feet. Tried to catch a fish. That's what it reminds me. That's all. I have to catch a fish now in this body of water. What do i have well. I have what i have. So we're fishing one of the things that you guys touched on his. Obviously you know you gotta get your kids out there and you gotta go fishing but one of the things. I've noticed my four kids. They're all very different. So i have one that shogo fishing in any conditions not catch a fish be perfectly happy. She's a hardcore fisherwoman and using the pictures david she catches the big fish. Yes and then. I have the next step. I have another daughter who shogo and she'll whether a fair amount but she's not gonna sit through cold wind and do all that she'll do it for a little bit but then she's done then. I have the other two who they don't catch a fish within the first two minutes. They're running up and down the bank and doing something else. They're playing with rocks trying to catch crawfish. They're digging holes dirt. You know doing whatever. And it's it's okay you know. And it's it's hard for me. Because i'm hardcore fishermen so i'm like what are you doing you know. I brought you here to fish. And i have to constantly just asked my wife. I mean she'll tell you patrick suit. She's always telling me. Patrick check yourself. It's okay you know. 'cause i'm like man. I did all this work to set all this up man. I said all this up. I want you to be here. And i want you to experience this but sometimes it kids just aren't into it as much as we are but i really appreciate those trips with my youngest daughter and my oldest daughter because they'll just fish and there was one day this last summer. It was right after. I took you out david when we went out on boylston and cut those nice nice. Trout took those girls and took them to bass lake just to have a little daddy daughter time and we went to a spot where i knew they were going to be some blue gill in some perch and we just caught the snot out of them. I mean it was. It was a lot of fun. And i had offered for all four kids to come but only those you want to come and so when we got home we had this message. Fish the other two were kind of jealous. You know like oh well i. I can't leave if you were going to catch fish i to sit in the win the award and so those two girls. They were like well. We caught all the fish. You know because we went. You know just kind of fun. It's just it's it's just interesting. How every kid is different. And every kid has a different threshold of you. Know a mini power through this or. I'm not going to power through this and so each one's a little bit different. But i find that eerily reminiscent you know. My my little brother fished a lot with dad. I mean quite a bit and both of us in the high school we fishtail heavily and a brother in as big inefficient as i was caught.


00:35:05 - 00:40:10

Lots of fish and he got lots of steelhead but today he you know him and i just i mean we go fishing and we'll go on trips and we'll do certain stuff but that's not our goto every week inactivity. I made my brothers in the hunting about two levels of chaos at. I am right and you know so. There's gotta be something there. As far as i think dad burned us out fishing. And it's not burned out that we we don't like it or do it. It's been there done that. Check that box. Know that i can do it. And you know specifically if we're going to go target golden trout rivers. Yeah i'll go. We're going to target some big brookies or go after halibut. Sure i'll go on enjoy it but if if if we're going to go on a hike through the woods are you going to say. Well we can chase big meal deer or we're going to chase brook trout or cutthroats. You can have the forefoot whitestream with the cutthroat senate. I'm gonna go look for big meal. Dear buck sure. It goes like you go through that progression. To as a fisherman or hunter even you know we talked about this with larry. Elder creek is that i mean you go from just wanting to catch a fish to some point you want to catch the biggest fish and then you just wanna see other people do it and so you go through that progression. I think in hunting and fishing where you go through different stages of i know for me it depends on the species that kind of bounce between phases because there are certain species that i still just want to catch. But then they're species that i've done really well on some not as interested in and you actually go with you know that same progression with any species of big game. You know but i've seen it you go from. Let's take deer for example. I just wanna get deer with a rifle. Then i want to get a big deer with a rifle. And then i wanna get a deer with a bow now. Want to get a big deal with a bow and then it's on do traditional and then no i wanna kill a big deer post wrote in this environment where nobody else has ever done it before and then like david you turn into a sheep. Hunter the next thing that now in a lot of ways. It's it's a pinnacle of right of the adventure. Just just because of where they live and what they inhabit how that works so i back to. I'll still go fish. Dad mentioned it or one of the guys in the steel head all it was dawn and he was. He was a competitive one. If i asked on can we fishing. Don would take me fish. Don't take any other old fuddy studies in the group. Go catch your own fish. But he would take me in the boat holiday me up with the pre murad on the right side of the boat with the best color. You're just to make sure that nine year old kid could catch us deal. And that's what is going to perpetuate sport. It's the same thing with faith. I took her. This fall gave her the appropriate rod the appropriate lure second cast. She has a twenty eight inch. Walleye that's what you want. You know when you're taking a toy rod welfare just a hook or something on the bottom. That wouldn't have been could have been fishing with but you've got the wall. Yeah as citizens her face man. That was awesome as a as a kid growing up. We did a lot of trolling for cocaine. Osaman for for trout in inflaming gorge. After after that opened up but there was My mom would if you were in the bolton and you hadn't caught efficient while my mom would bait your hook for you and she would take the worm and step on it on the bottom of the boat with their foot to smash the warm up just a little bit. And that would be the rod that would catch the next fish. I mean it was blow that sent right out of that worm now. There's something to that though because they can smell it. Oh it was. I mean. I mean it's one of those little tricks that you i will to this day if i'm worm fishing on something sometimes you know not catching anything so you know what. I'm going to beat that up a little bit for. Throw it out there and eight times out of ten or something. It's successful it. It does something that you know. I'll get a by robin. Most maddening thing is. I took some young men on a summer camping trip up in the winds and i hiked to inlet the lake. Not the outlet. We'd been fishing. Lake can do fairly well on six to twelve inch fish. Get up in the inlet in the deepest hole it was then that was maybe a foot deep and five six feet wide but it hit this boulder and made six foot deep little pool about two hundred yards upstream from the lake. And there's a twenty inch cutthroat laying in the bottom. And i had two dozen wet and dry flies and i put every fly in front of now. This is a little more popular lake with hiking trail. So we get the kids in and out. And i'm sure that fisher seen his fair share. He's probably been educated once or twice. But that's just motivates david to go take his bow fishing bow or spearing who can take that. Fish is still two years ago now. It's still haunting me patrick. I every time somebody tells me. A story like that i see the eyeball of the tiger muskie that when i was in high school i'd been wanting to catch tiger muskie for a long time and i only had a few trips a year that i could actually go and i had this about thirty six inch tiger muskie fall lure in one day and he just sat next to the boat looking up at me.


00:40:10 - 00:45:12

Like yeah yeah. I'm not that stupid and it just drives me nuts. It burns me. I had nightmares about that stupid fish and the next day i actually got him to strike and i pulled bluer out of his mouth. Because i was too excited. I could see him is super clearwater like crystal clear. And i'm working this lower and i see him come up behind it and i see his mouth open and accept the hook and into air because they didn't let him bite down and take it It still bothers me to this day. Even though i've caught tiger muskie's now it's like dang. Why did i do we. We took a thirty foot. diesel pusher boat down to port. Graham out homer and we're halibut fishing and there are some pinnacles out there. So you've gotta you from feet of water up to thirty and then back down to ninety in like twenty feet but the fish stack up on either side of that depending current does that acts like a wind wall. Right and i remember. We're catching halibut. Mostly even i thought i had a halibut on but with acting kind of funny and what had happened. I caught about a thirty inch in god. And you know we're just running jig heads bigger six inch jigs with just a white body. Jig does in his mouth. But he'd got half hitched around the middle so he coming up sideways. I don't know how i got half. It's i'm not sure until he got about the surface. And we're trying to figure out how to deal with this fish. And i mean i still remember vividly. Another link cod swims up and had been chasing him and swallows half of my fish bites down and swims away. I told you the fish. I had on was thirty inches. Had a mouth like a one gallon paint canned the fish that swam up and bit fish had a mouse. Like a five gallon bucket. It was fifty plus sixty s to this day. I'd like to get the other one. This one sounds like we have to go remedy that situation. Go back and find that fish. Yes there's another revenge. I mean when you're looking down at a thirty inch fish and all sudden sixty inch fish appears. I still don't quite believe my own eyes. Well i took jeremy. We were fishing on the on the willamette for squaw fish. So and and we'd pulled off on. He was fishing while we were doing something. And he had a chinook salmon. We're talking a thirty pound fisher come up fall and he jumped out of the water letting joe back like because we were catching these you know. Eight to twelve fifteen inch squaw fish and that was not what he was expected to come on his warm up there. Just all of a sudden you're there and they're here's a here's a big fish and you go. Oh totally out of place man. Yeah that will get your attention in a hurry when you see something you don't expect in the water. We took a charter out of oregon deep sea fishing. And i remember. I took my bride. We were dating. At the time. I was a family trip. I'm sure my sister and brother and dad were there but instead it and we're digging for rock fish off the bottom instead of letting gig straight down and get to the bottom. She cast that thing out there about twenty thirty yards. She hooked to a silver salmon. Yes yes she. She hooked a awesome silver salmon. So we got a picture of a link the sea bass in a salmon on the same trip. So you never quite know where you're going to get some of those species with what that's part of the fun of just going fishing. You just don't know sometimes especially on really diverse bodies water like voice and you don't know merritt reservoir nebraska. You just don't know you could have a a fifty inch. Musk deer you might get an eighteen inch white bass you don't know you could have a three hundred pound halibut or you could have a a fifty pound scape coming in sideways. You just don't know sometimes it's a shark or you could have an orca pop up next to the boat. That's a little intimidating man. When we were when we were out by seward there we took that charter out there. And they went by the boat. And i mean they in a when. You're right next to. Because i mean i. I almost could've reached out and touched dorsal fin. You know kind of thing. And when they kind of role and look at you with that i as a weird feeling because i mean they were big as our posed as like holy cow. But i mean they're cool animal but man that's freaky and when you see the dorsal is that high out of the slick. That is a big animal. Die tell you about the humpback that breached the water right next to us while we're digging out there. Oh my gosh you want to talk about heart attack. I'm standing there. And i'm digging for rock fish and i've caught probably three or four and i was kind of getting bored because the biggest pandemonium digging for rock fishes. You have one splashing all. They don't do fish. Yeah they don't do anything. So i was kinda getting bored with that and pretty quickly after that changed over in came up the water calling because there were silvers running and start fishing for those because they were more fun but anyway so i'm sitting there and you know you've got the mainland there that you can see and it was pretty rough that day i mean. We were anchored and bouncing up and down. Everybody was feeling a little rough and i. I'm not really paying too much attention. And all the sudden. I see this flash come out of the water and i mean within fifty yards of the boat and i look up in this huge humpback whale comes all the way out almost you know and then rolls on his back and hits the water just like you.


00:45:12 - 00:50:00

Talk about an adrenalin rush. You know kind of bored captured. Rock fish and all of a sudden whale breaches. It's like holy cow. It's a cool cool site and those some of the coolest things i've ever seen. One of my favorite things about that whole ocean fishing is it's dungeness crabs. Oh man not much better eating in the ocean. You guys lived in oregon. You had access to those puppies we would go crabbing on the coast and we'd go down to S story lincoln city lincoln city. Where go the next one down. What was wolpert while. That's where we with crab in a lot awkward and we catch you know we got quite a few limits of dungeness crab there an ill. I loved those. Oh my gosh. They're about as good as anything. Don't you agree. I mean they're so good as a kid. Patrick i couldn't stand the smell. And i catch him loved so by brother. There just devour table full of. I'm looking. I'm like you guys are weird. I like catching these things. There needs you. Give me six or seven of those puppies and some butter. And i'm in hog heaven. Gosh you know those square about all three and three k. Traps yeah when we went to Prince wales island. There we went out crabbing twice. We basically would catch a salmon anti at the bottom of the crab drop and throw it out there aids osaman carcass. Yeah and and we would pull up cramp just full of crap. Just pull up a whole the whole crap out of craps. We ate crabs at trip to we. Were sickie grabs. Remember in walpole. We'd have to got to sort through them and you can go through. The sub goes right and oregon's limit was a little bit more than the california limit. Everyone of those crabs up there on prince of wales island was significantly bigger than the california limit size. I mean they're just they're dinner plate sized at at four gotta go back and go get some more crabs. Sounds really good. He hasn't making me hungry early for that. So the the way to clean a crab. Take the crab whole alive smacking on the corner over the counter combo up bottom noun. Peel the shell off split half rinsing water polo lungs off and some people. Boil them alive. And i am a fan of when you boil them season the water a little bit with some seasoned salt. I mean some people go as far as they bring ocean water home and oil in the ocean water. Some people put that crab. Boiler crowd ed boyle stuff in with them when they cook them to. I've heard that's good. I've just done them just regular water. That's okay but they're still a little good little bit assault right. Let's all make it a little brackish and then boil them a really good little bit assault helps out a lot. Yeah there's not much better eating. I don't know david. I'm having second thoughts now. Just kidding. i've always like when i was a little kid. And we went up to alaska. And i got to eat fresh crab up there and man that was that was awfully good. We had fresh king crab. And i think it was in homer if i remember right might have been increased. I don't remember it was one of those two. I was a little kid but man. I remember thinking one. These claws are humongous and two man. This is really good so good. And it was affordable up there. You know you try to get that here and it's not so ford we're a little bit of a ways away from the ocean. Dirty good flight from the ocean ocean lake excluded. No kidding but crawdads you can have you know. Pretty good poor man's lobster those pretty good and the other thing is if you catch burbot which is basically freshwater link cod around here. you know. it's just a little ling- some of them get pretty good size you steam boilers burbot and pull the meat off. Dip butter tastes a lot like lobster. And it's really really really good now. I'm hungry so yeah. I think that's a good place to end papa. Merrill thanks for coming on and sharing stories efficient or welcome. Yeah thanks for coming on and we'll have to get out and do some fishing here before too long. I know everybody's in a little bit to get out and do something so we'll have to get out there So everybody again. Thanks for listening to the show. Go to our facebook page and like that page and also definitely follow us on instagram. Check out our website. We have Some new things on there just about every week so make sure to go and check that out. check out our old episodes. We have a lot of out there. You might be interested in and want to say a big thank you shoutout to. Pk lures for coming on sponsor. You guys haven't heard of them. They have some of the best fishing equipment on the market. And i can vouch for. Because i've been using it for a long time out. There is a news article up on our website so click on the new section. You can read a little bit about. Pk lures will come back next time with the another great show. Yeah definitely get on their support. Pk go go test author lures or some patrick kane vowed form. Oh man. if you're ice fishing right now. Go by. And i kid you not. The eighth outs quarter-ounce. Pk spoon and red.


00:50:00 - 00:50:42

Dot glow pattern. It's it's a dynamite lure. I've caught burbot on them. I've caught walleye on them. I've caught trout on them. Just about anything you can imagine crappie and usually they're pretty good size fish so definitely go get those they were named one of the top ice fishing lures of all time by in fisherman so I think they were number two so to be at number two on that list or is either two or three. That's pretty impressive. And they also have another lure called the flutter fish which is in the top five fishing. All time according in fisherman. So you can't go wrong if you're efficient hard water those two and you're gonna do really well and if you wanna help support our podcast here you show your show your sport gets you read cast outdoors hat absolutely and so again. Thanks for listening.