WOT 173: Why Making it Easy Works in Fly Fishing and Music with Chris Coole

In this episode we WadeOutThere with Chris Coole from Toronto, Ontario.  Chris grew up fishing with his uncle for walleye, bass, and musky as a child until the mystique of fly fishing captured his imagination.  About the same time Chris got his hands on a fly rod, he picked up a banjo.  That was over thirty years ago, and they’ve been part of his life ever since. 

Chris’s love of fly fishing makes its way into many of the songs and tunes he writes in the forms of places and feelings.  His work has given him the opportunity to travel the world as a professional musician, who always seems to find a way to wet a line on the road.  Chris is both a solo artist and a member of “The Lonesome Ace Stringband.”

We discuss the value of keeping things simple in music and fly fishing in pursuit of falling into the flow, and the traditions and variations that have been passed down in both fiddle tunes and fly fishing. 

Please listen to the end, as Chris treats us to a performance of one of his banjo tunes that was inspired by fly fishing.

To learn more about Chris and the topics we discussed in this episode, check out the following links:

ChrisCoole.com
LonesomeAce.com
Road to the River - A collection of tunes and sings inspired by the fishing passion.  Including the tune at the end of this episode, Copper Run.

Show notes + MORE

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Transcript

Jason 0:00

In this episode, we wait out there with Chris Cool from Toronto, Ontario. Chris grew up fishing with his uncle for walleye, bass, and muskie as a child until the mystique of fly fishing captured his imagination. About the same time Chris got his hands on a fly rod, he picked up a banjo. That was over thirty years ago, and they've both been part of his life ever since. Chris's love of fly fishing makes its way into many of the songs and tunes he writes in the forms of places and feelings. His work has given him the opportunity to travel the world as a professional musician who always seems to find a way to wet a line on the road. Chris is both a solo artist and a member of the Lonesome Ace String Band. We discuss the value of keeping things simple in music and fly fishing in pursuit of falling into the flow and the traditions and variations that have been passed down in both fiddle tunes and fly fishing. Please listen to the end as Chris treats us to a performance of one of his banjo tunes that was inspired by fly fishing. Welcome to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Shepchuk. At Wade Out There, we believe fly fishing is special, but not elite, and that anyone can become a great fly fisher if they are willing to go, learn, and teach. Join me as I talk with other fly fishermen and women about their unique journeys into fly fishing, the rivers they fish, and the tactics and philosophies they practice. For those who can never leave the river in their hearts, this podcast is dedicated to helping you make the memories that keep us all coming back to Wade Out There. Welcome, Chris. Thanks for being on the Wade Out There podcast. Hi Jason, how are you? I'm doing good. I'm really excited to talk to you, man. I I love your music uh when I was introduced to it. I like that kind of bluegrass type thing, and I love a banjo, and it's really good. So uh I love talking to people that are fly fishing artists and uh have taken the the love of fly fishing into their professional artistic uh professions as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Awesome. Awesome, and I like talking about fishing, so not made in heaven.

Jason 2:13

That's great. Yeah, the uh I've been I'm just now starting to I'm starting my oil painting. I'm switching over to oils, and this is perfect. Like selfishly, I'm happy to have been introduced to you because I've got this, I'm gonna listen to this type of music while I paint all the time. It's one of the things I love about painting is that I get to listen to good music. I don't know why I just don't have music going that often in my life, but when I'm down here definitely one of my favorite times.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

I I love listening to to music on the way to fishing. Like it's like a real I have to really curate my just to get my myself in the right mood. And I also love listening to music when I'm tying flies.

Jason 2:52

Okay. So you tie flies as well? Uh how long have you been tying flies?

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Is that been the same as fly fishing or um not quite no, not quite as long, but like I don't know, probably geez, uh probably about you know tw at least 25 years or something like that. Yeah. I'm not especially I should be a lot better at it than uh than uh than I am, but I mean I can get the job done, you know. Yeah, it's it's so much easier. I'm I'm probably like the last generation of fly fishermen who learned to do things pre-internet. Uh I I sort of uh like I had all the I all the books, you know. I had that big, that giant fly tires bedside reference book that had at the time was like a game changer because it had everything in it, but now with all the great YouTube channels, it's crazy. Like uh there's it's it's so much it's such a better time to be learning how to tie flies right now. And I've definitely gotten better in the past 10 years. I got bet I I I I got more mileage in the past 10 years than I did in the first 15 for sure, once I discovered how much great uh material there is on the internet.

Jason 4:08

Yeah, YouTube is really helpful for tying flies for sure. Um I was just talking to somebody learning to play the banjo as well, and I would imagine it's probably good for learning to play music as well. I don't know, because he's got an online instructor and he goes back and forth. And uh I don't know, what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Is that yeah, I mean I do a lot of I've I've always done a lot of teaching and I do now I do pretty much only online teaching and I do workshops online and stuff like that. Um yeah, like when I when I was learning when I first got into banjo, uh it would have been in around 89 or 90. Uh, and I'm up in Canada and and I have none of this music in my background. It was just sort of a weird path to to finding it. But it was all like I just had to go to record stores. I scoured record stores uh in town here and would just try to find something that had a banjo, and it was like you know, looking back some of my early albums, they're not like albums that I would say if somebody was like, Hey, what do I want to listen to when I'm first learning? Uh the some of the stuff that was the early my early influences isn't stuff I would say, it's like, oh, this is definitive, but it was just the only stuff I had, you know. Now you just literally would just type banjo or claw hammer banjo, which is the style of banjo I play. You type it into the search engine, and you have more than you'll ever be able to listen to or digest or learn. You'll have every lesson, you know, it's it's all there. And I'm not being I I I actually I sometimes you can get curmudging, be a bit of a curmudgeon about stuff like that. But I'm actually very, I'm actually very grateful I I didn't have that uh because uh I loved the I I might not I I actually don't know that I would have been as interested in it because I I think uh I loved the mystery of it and I loved the hunt. And I and I also think that that applies to how I got into fly fishing a little bit too.

Jason 6:10

Well, how did you get into fly fishing? What came first, the banjo or the fly rod?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Uh well I guess I think I got my first fly rod when I was 17. Same it, you know, about the same time. Or at the same time, but I've been fishing my entire life. Like uh uh spin fishing. I I still do all types of fishing. I'm not uh only a fly fisherman. Um but I'd been fishing my whole life and I was really into it. I, you know, just like I I I I've never been the I'm not the best fisherman in the world, but I sort of like it better than most people do, and I sort of always have. Probably not more than people who listen to this podcast, but like I I have a bit of a hammerhead with it. I always just really love it. It was always like for I remember even from a being like a little kid, like three or four years old, or some of my earliest memories, it will always seem so important to me for some reason. Fishing just seemed really important.

Jason 7:03

Yeah, it's kind of funny how it hits people in that way, and it just seems to be this thing that they have to do or they want to do. Or I mean, I don't I wasn't like that when I was a kid. I mean, I I loved being outdoors and I loved being in the mountains, and being on rivers was a part of that, and I've always liked rivers, but fishing was just something you did, like one of the things on the river that you would do for fun, like swim in the river, jump in the river, you know, float the river, things like that, and fish in the river. And then I think when I got to Colorado in school, I got more introduced to more fly fisher, fly fishing uh people that really took it more seriously or or just knew more about it, and then when I started to learn all the intricacies of it, then I became more intrigued by it.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

You you probably saw you probably would be seeing people fly fishing, right?

Jason 7:56

When you are cut when I was in Montana, like on the ranch, not really. I mean, you could see them sometimes if we would you would be driving down the highway and you could see like the Yellowstone River or or uh the Clark Fork or something from the road and you would see people, but it wasn't anywhere around us really. There was some stuff that we fished with that was in the old trapper's lodge that we kind of just came out and used for fun, but it wasn't uh it wasn't around us a ton. Colorado for sure, more in Colorado. Yeah, yeah. Uh and then as I got older and now it's around a ton, but uh what was music like that for you too? Like, so I think sometimes fly fishing hits people like that. There's people that fish and they've been fishing a long time and then they kind of like move into fly fishing as like this curiosity. Sounds like that's somewhat of what you had, but then there's a question.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Yeah. So so so anyways, I was really into I was really into fishing, and then I was like, I was I would read all the the magazines and and you know you'd get like all the all the sort of standard magazines, and if you were into like you know, field and stream or sports of field, they'd always have the odd thing, uh like fly fishing thing. And it was always this mystical thing, and and uh my uncle Art, who was my main sort of uh mentor fishing growing up, I mean, we it was always like you know, we we mostly fish for for what we call pickerel up here, but it's what you guys call walleye. Um uh not chain pickerel, like walleye was our sort of main thing. And and and then we'd catch bass and musky and stuff like that while we were fishing for walleye. But we'd go steel heading uh in the in the spring, but we fish with like float rods or even like like fish spinners sometimes, and then we got into float fishing, and but it was always like there was like this reverence, like you'd see the odd fly fishermen, and it was always like we all knew it that sort of felt like it was the pinnacle, but nobody in my family did it. And like, like nobody, I never I to this day I've been fishing on that on this lake that I grew up uh spending my summers on in Ontario called Belmont Lake. To this day, I'm the only person I've ever seen fly fishing on that lake in 50 years. It's just not quite it's there, there is, it's it's it's here once you once you you know if you go to the right place, but it's not as not very common. So I never saw anybody fly fish, and I also played banjo. I eventually, you know, I I I knew I wanted to to fly fish, so I I I got my parents to to get me a uh a fly rod for my birthday or something. Uh and uh and it was the same thing with banjo. I I didn't see anybody else play the banjo for about the first year I played it. I didn't know anybody.

Jason 10:49

Yeah, so I'm curious uh I'm curious around why what made you like what is it about those two things that you think that you think it's the mystery of it or just the kind of like mystique, or because again, it's not like I want to play the guitar, which you hear a lot, or I want to play you know piano or the drums. Like because it's a guy I was talking to too. I was like, well, what made you think banjo? And he's like, I have no idea. Just popped in my head one day. I just want to learn to play the banjo.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Yeah, I I mean I was playing guitar music, music was always important to me, even before, even from when I was a little kid. I remember I used to go to sleep, like this is probably when I was like seven years old. I would go to sleep and leave the radio on all night and just sleep to the and this was big pop music of the 80s, like with Duran Duran and stuff like that. I would just I like listen to it all the time. And like my first paper route I had when I was in grade two, the first thing I bought was a Sony Walkman, one of the early ones, like huge Sony Walkman. And I always, if you ever saw me from the time I was in about grade two to you know when I was in my 20s, if I was alone, I had a Walkman on. I was always listening to music. I started playing guitar in grade nine because there was a guitar class in my high school, and that sort of got me more into folk music and stuff like that. And then again, from just sort of going to record stores, I like I started hearing that's like I sort of like you know, whenever there was a banjo, I always liked it. And it's like, oh, there's actually a type of music that like that like this is actually a part of it. What I'm what I'm recognizing like as just a splash in the odd song is actually a whole world of music, and I had to again piece that mystery together, and and I think uh yeah, like I think I sort of I dug the the obscurity of it, and maybe some part of my ego likes doing things that other people aren't into and being like, you know, who knows, but it's all in there.

Jason 12:48

Yeah. Do you remember a time or a trip in fly fishing where something stands out to you as like a a memory where you really learned a lot or progressed or kind of had a breakthrough moment? Oh man, all of them though.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Like to the I I'm one of these people like to this day, I'm not sure that I've ever caught a fish and not been surprised. I mean, even when I know, even when I've like I honestly, like even if I'm know exactly what I'm doing, maybe I'm like I'm casting to a ri a specific rising trout. I'm always surprised, like I'm like, Jesus, like if it when it happens. So why is that I don't know. It always seems like magic. It just always seems like magic. And I'm glad for that. I I mean I think that's one of the reasons I love it so much. Um, I I mean I can remember the first trout I caught on a fly. Because when I first started, I got my first fly rod, uh, I was fishing in uh the the Deer River, uh uh, which is a uh uh the river that flows into the the lake that my cottage is on. Uh and I would go up there because I just figured you fly fished in moving water and just from the seeing it in pictures, and I I learned to cast from I had this lefty cray book that was like stop photography of his cast, like like and uh and I somehow managed to, it made sense to me, because usually stuff like that doesn't work for me, but it somehow made sense to me. And I went up the river and I would I was just I would always fish for bass. And then in this river there is there's something called the fall fish. Do you know what that is? Nope. It's sort of like a like a sucker-ish, almost like a sucker whitefish type thing. Um uh but they're really fun to catch on a fly rod, and they will sometimes take dry flies and they'll they'll take nymphs and streamers, and they fight all awful lot like a trout sometimes, uh like a like a brook trout or something. Um so that's well, that was my my my early uh fly fishing, but I always like knew like again, like that pyramid idea. The tip of the pyramid was to catch a trout and the very tip of the trout on a fly, and the very tip would be to catch a trout on a fly that you tied yourself. And I remember distinctly when I caught my first trout on a fly that I tied myself. I was fishing in this little beaver pond uh about you know an hour and a half outside of Toronto that I'd sort of discovered, um, and it was sort of like my secret private fishing spot. And and uh I was fishing uh I think it was probably like a woolly worm or something, and you know, fishing it as a wet fly in still water, twitching it a bit, and uh, and I just man, it was the best.

Jason 15:34

Do you find that uh your time and music, like with the the practice? We were talking a little bit about this before the show, with the journey and the the time that it takes to progress and get good at something like music and maybe fly fishing. Uh do you find that when you were going into fly fishing, your your study of music and guitar and banjo helped you kind of get through some of the harder times in fly fishing in the beginning when maybe you're not catching as many fish as you'd like?

SPEAKER_02 16:06

I guess I know from how much time I've spent playing music and working on it, um uh, you know, because I sort of made it my profession right out of high school. Um and so I I know how I don't know exactly how many, but I know, you know, I've got an I feel for how many hours I've spent practicing and just playing. And I was a busker for 12 years, which means I played in the subway system in Toronto all through my 20s, sort of as my day job. Uh I put in a lot of hours and I know sort of what that gets you, and I also know that I've never had that amount of time, I've never been able to put that time into uh into fishing. And I mean I can I can get the job done again and I can fish with really good fishermen and uh I'm good enough that they'll fish with me and I don't like you know don't bother them, but I I know I know I haven't been able to put the hours into it. I mean I I basically made a I made a career out of my passion, which basically takes up all your time. If you try to make a job out of the thing that you love, which is what I did with music, it really takes a lot of your time. So I've I've never had the time to I if I died today, the one thing I would regret is that I've never had the time to like I like I would love to be in a position where I fished every day for a year or something, or like I at least had the option to get out on the water every day, and I've always lived in the city and I'm on tour quite a bit. Uh so I've never never been able to never been able to make that happen.

Jason 17:45

Living in the city, has that made it uh is that one of the things that you like about fly fishing, the um contrast?

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Definitely. I mean, I I was lucky enough with this lake I keep referencing. Uh my family had a cottage uh on on this lake, and we would spend uh like we'd go up there like the day school got out, and you know, often wouldn't go back to the city till the day before school started. So I had two months and it was like, you know, this was again during this was uh in the time for me, it would have been like you know, the late 70s, early 80s and stuff like that, where parents just let their kids do stuff, and like we were just like you get breakfast, and then it's like okay, here's your lunch, see you at dinner type thing. And so me and my cousins, you know, we got to I you know spend the day in the forest and and out on the lake, and we were just sort of on our own. So we um you know, I that just that that time it really is has had the most influence on what the things I value as an adult. Um and uh definitely having lived, it's I think it's what's allowed me to uh to survive living in the city this long. I've lived pretty much in downtown Toronto, which is a very large city uh for my entire life, and having that escape, I was you know privileged enough to have you know this place to go. Um, but now that sort of just taught me an appreciation for the beauty of nature, which I think is a real lifeline for me.

Jason 21:39

I want to talk about when you go on the road, Chris, and you're fishing with the profession. You said you put all this time into music and playing banjo, and you've made your passion your career from a very early age. Do you look at that time on the road as the same place, like a that magical place that you can go to not just for music but for fishing as well? Because you must be going to places where there's opportunity to fish. Um I just wanted to know if that is something you look forward to going on the road as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

Yeah, I've been really lucky. I mean, when I'm uh if it's you know, even if there's even a glimmer of hope that there might be some fishing when I'm on the road, I generally always have I have like a a travel rod, a seven piece five weight, and a little pack like a little like satchel that's got a box of you know, your your one box.

Jason 22:36

I got me one of them too. I got to do that. Yeah, your travel.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Well, yeah, you're an air, yeah, as a pilot, you must you must have your little stash because you never know when it's gonna happen. And I've been been able to um I've been able to fish in some great places and it's often it's you know met some great people uh through fishing. In fact, you know, one of the things is I sort of alluded to when I was starting to fly fish, I I like I never saw anybody else do it. And really that went for a long time because even once I started fishing, like in my the the creek around Toronto that's closest, uh there's a little freestone creek called the Credit River that I started fishing probably when I was in my mid-late twenties or something. Um, and that was like the first you know, fly fishing for trout I did. It's such a small creek that like there was other fishermen on there, but it was so small that if you saw another fisherman, like you you got away from them because you'd be you you didn't want to jam them. And so even when I started fishing on a river that was like it was a catch and release, you know, uh fly-only river, more or less, uh, I still didn't really see you'd you'd catch a glimpse of somebody, but not enough that you could like, you know, really watch a great fisherman do their do their thing, uh, which is how you learn, obviously. I didn't really like get to fish with people who I would consider to be mentors uh until probably about in the past 10, 10, 12, 13 years, uh some f some pals I met uh down in the Catskills. A fellow named Joe Hendrick and my buddy Glenn Carson. And I sort of met them both. Our connection really was music first. And that allowed me, they're much better fishermen than I am. But that sort of allowed me to fish with really great great fishermen and stuff. The first time I'd seen a great fly caster and been able to hang out and just watch them do their thing. And that has helped my fishing more than anything else. I mean, I've read a lot of books on fly fishing, and I'm not sure that they did much more than confuse me a lot of times.

Jason 24:56

What would you most recommend to people about fly fishing that's helped you the most?

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Oh, you know, I have to say, I still think the best fly fishing book is uh Trout by Ray Bergman. Uh and I was just thinking about that the other day, and I I I've probably read it cover to cover three times over my life, and I think I should read it again because every the first time I read it, I like I, you know, it didn't mean that much uh to me. And then, you know, I probably read it five or six years later when I'd fished a bit more, and it was like you read it again, you're like, oh, I totally because you can envision that you know it's really hard to describe fishing like with the pen in unless somebody knows what you're talking about, and then you're like, Yeah, I totally get the situation he's in. I still think that's the that's my favorite fishing book.

Jason 25:49

That's true. There needs to be some context. Like, if you don't know anything, then even the concepts that you're writing about don't make any sense. There has to be some sort of baseline expectation there. Uh it makes it very hard to do it without. Uh how did you know early on, even without these mentors in your life? Like, was it just innately did it just make sense to you? I guess that you were supposed to give people room on the river? Because I hear people talk about that where they're like, I guess people don't know that, or they don't know kind of like to give people space, or I don't know if that's something that needs to be learned, or you just had that in you.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

I think, I mean, again, I had I had like right right off the bat, I think my my uncle Art was a good mentor for sportsmanship, and I don't remember ever talking to him about it or anything, but I mean it's sort of like that everything I never needed to learn, I learned in kindergarten or whatever. I mean, it's just common, it's common sense, really.

Jason 26:51

It's the golden rule, right? Because if I'm on the river, I don't I like to be, I like my space, right? And so if you see someone else, then you'd want to be treated that way. So I'm gonna I'm gonna give them space. Like I think that's why it makes sense in my brain.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

I love I although I I mean I love like like sometimes like I I sometimes when I when when I would fish up on uh uh fush fish up on the credit river there when I you know over the years, I I love bumping into somebody because it's actually it's it happens so infrequently. I I I I s rejoy it because it's just like this. I get to talk about fishing with somebody and we could compare notes and I I enjoy it, but but I don't push it because a lot of people just like to keep to themselves.

Jason 27:35

Yes, I am similar. Like if I'm walking down the stream or in the parking lot or something, and I nod at somebody and it seems like they are receptive to just like having a brief conversation or something like that, I have no problem talking to folks on the river. I I don't know. It depends on my mood, I guess. Sometimes I'm more likely to just go about my business, but I um yeah, but but certainly when I'm in the water or people are on the water, you know, in the act of fishing, like um I generally steer clear. Uh but I do like to watch sometimes I'll watch people fish now. Uh I don't know, just from a distance, kind of just like see what's going on, see how they're doing.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

I mean, that's another great thing about YouTube, right? It's like, God, there's amazing, especially like with the cameras people have now and drone footage and all that stuff. You can actually sort of watch like some of the stuff that you were trying you try to understand from reading in a book, you know, like trying to learn to nymph from a book is like you know, that's that's tricky. I at least from the way my mind worked, it wasn't a great it wasn't a great way to learn, but it was sort of the only way I had the other thing you can you can mess up with a book is like um you know I uh reading like some of the the classic, you know, uh uh like uh the Swisher and Richards books and stuff like that. The um the those Max the Hatch books and stuff uh you know that came out in the 70s, Ring, Rise and the Ring or Ring of the Rise or whatever. Like those books were written like those guys were down in the Catskills or on the Delaware or something, where you know, there was like, you know, they talk they talk about blanket hatches and like masking hatches, and like there's a you know, it's like that well the river river that I fish, that didn't really happen. It was just a tiny little river. You were lucky if there was like the fish didn't really, it was rare for them to key in for a hatch to be strong enough to key it for them to key in on anything in particular, and but you don't know that, and you sort of think that like you know, it's like you should be walking around, you know, you know, trying to find the rising fish to the hatch, you know, and it's describing a lot of time with these books, they're describing places and types of fishing that might not apply to where you are, you know, and it can that can that can be be pretty confusing. I really definitely believe what uh Lefty Cray said uh that 90% of fishing knowledge is local knowledge. I yeah, I abscribe to that for sure.

Jason 30:04

For sure. I think that's why guides are so valuable because they're on that river all the time and they know it, right? And um if you were on that river all the time, you'd know a lot more about it too, right? If you're just showing up to a new place. How did you how were you able to find mentors on the road, or do you have any recommendations for people that are kind of in a similar spot where maybe it's not music, but they're traveling a lot and working and um hopefully they're in the same similar place where their their passion is their work, but maybe they're not. Is there anything that you've picked up or any ideas or advice you'd give to folks that could you know search out some mentorship or some people they could fish with?

SPEAKER_02 30:49

I yeah, I I I just I I just can't express how important it is. I mean, these days, I mean I I think if you don't have um like like my friend uh Joe, uh who I mentioned before, Joe Hendrick, I first met him, he was a guide that um me and my fishing buddy Bob Hutton, who is like probably my best fishing buddy and who I've known the longest, and we met through banjo because because he was uh he's a banjo collector and player, and people and he lives about an hour from me, and people kept saying, Do you know Chris Cool? Because he likes banjos and he fishes, and people kept saying to me, there's another guy who likes to fish. Do you know Bob Hutton? Because he likes banjos. And so anyway, me and Bobby would go down to to the Cat Skills and we'd sometimes hire a guide and float uh the the Delaware, and Joe was our guide one time, and then it turned out that as we talked, Joe played mandolin and made mandolins and and all this, and so he be he just became a friend. Uh and yeah, if you if you don't have a mentor, if I'd known that uh you know, if I'd like guides are pretty expensive. I mean, it's I probably wouldn't have been able to afford it in my 20s. Um but if you can afford, if you don't have a mentor and you can afford a guide, it is worth it. Even though, even if you're listening and you look at what a guide costs and you you you almost dry heave because it looks so expensive, uh, it's worth it. Uh that's probably my best bet if you're traveling and can can pull it off anyway, is is get a guide because you know, again, it's just like even just being around those guys uh helps your fishing. Just being around a really fishy person who has who has the hours up to build up the instinct, you know. That's sort of what I was talking about before. Because I like when I'm teaching music, I always tell people it's like, well, look, it's like you think about when you're practicing and you're learning this, you have to really, you've got to put your mind to it and you've got to dedicate yourself. But once you when you're actually playing, there's nothing going through your head. Like you're not thinking at all. That's when you're doing it, right? When you're really playing music, you're not like you're not thinking, you're sort of in the zone, whatever you want to want to call it. And that's what a what a great fisherman, and we all have no matter where you are, you all have moments of that, right? It happens where everything you know comes together for you. But to see somebody who's built up that instinct with their 20,000 hours on the water or whatever, you know, it's a beautiful thing to be around and it rubs off on you. I'm I'm I really believe that.

Jason 33:27

Yeah, for sure. Um do you remember anything that you learned from some of these mentors that really stuck with you early on when you started fishing with them?

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Well, again, real honestly, just like watching them watching them watching them cast uh and just the how relaxed they're casting, uh how relaxed a good caster is, which should have made perfect sense because that's also the key to playing music. You know, you can't fight it. You have to be you have to be loose and you've got to be relaxed and you can't be tight. And uh and um and then I like like again, all a lot of the stuff that that I learn from from them is stuff that I am constantly trying to teach people in music, and like just how they've figured out like people are I I always say like to music students is like the best, you know, the best musicians are the ones who figured out what the easy way to do it is and what the simplest uh uh approach is and and you know economy of motion and all that type of stuff. And and you know, most of like the really good fishermen I know, they they use very simple flies. Um they just you know they pay really close attention, uh, but they don't do anything f that fancy and they don't let themselves get too bogged down on details.

Jason 34:53

Why do you think that's hard for people to catch on to for some, or more so for some than others? Oh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

I I mean I think we're in our society, you know, it's you know, we're sort of hardwired to think that the answer to any problem is to get something, you know, to buy something, or to add something, or to learn something. And sometimes the sometimes the answer is just to pay more attention to what you're already doing and increase the just make the quality of what you're already doing better. Uh again, that's sort of a you know, as I'm talking here, I'm I'm hearing myself teach banjo. Uh uh but that's sort of the the same type of thing. I it's like I you know I tell people all the time when with at my banjo workshops, it's like the answer is like like once you know 20 tunes, you know everything to learn the other 2,000. Uh you the the thing you that the thing that most people need to get from intermediate to advance isn't like some lick. It's definitely not a different instrument. Uh it's not a uh it's not a tune that they need to be able to learn. It's take what you learn, what you know how to do, and just make the quality of that better. That's the that's the path forward, you know, and and to see and to be around people who've done that is just so inspiring. And it just sort of it just makes the way more more more clear for you. Like when you see somebody doing it and making it look easy, uh, it just it sh it shines a light on the path, I think.

Jason 36:33

Yeah. I think about that a lot with a lot of the things that I do in my life uh in pursuit of something that I'm trying to progress at or trying to get excellent at or something. It's not so much it's more about what I can take away and still have it be good versus add. Um even, you know, I can think even in tactics in the the fighter squadron, you know, the simplest tactics, those are the best. The guys with the the just the easiest, simplest. And it was it would be like a a a curve where people would get into things and then they'd they'd kind of understand a bunch of stuff, and then they would just go back to the basic stuff in the beginning, but they were just understood there was it was they understood the value of that simplicity, and that it didn't have to be any harder than that. Like when they went back to a yeah, you know, like if I think about like you kind of learn the basics because you don't know anything, so you're trying to just learn basic formation and tactics and and rules and stuff, and then uh and then you start thinking about all these different things that you can do. It's not it's not even like you have to do it, it's just like oh I could do this and I can do that and I can do this. Um all these different things that you could add to it that will give you more capability, I guess, more um this will this will make this will make my formation be able to do this, but you forget that it's really hard to communicate that in the air when you're on the move and you're thinking and there's all kinds of stuff going on. And like when you're like like if you're playing, I would imagine when you're playing, you don't want to have to be thinking about complex things. You want if it's be easier to get in the flow if it's just simpler, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Yeah, that exactly. Have you ever heard that? I I I read an expression, you'll you'll appreciate this as a as a visual artist. You probably may have heard it, but uh I read it in a magazine about 10 years ago and it and uh it just rang so true. It's just a very simple thing. It's art is subtraction.

Jason 38:33

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:35

It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful. I mean, it's such a it's the even the the the three words are are are are so sparse, but it means so much, and it's it's it's exactly I think it's it sums up what we're talking about. Yeah.

Jason 38:49

Yeah. Do you have any like uh besides bringing your your seven piece rod, have you have can you think of any kind of logistical things about playing on the road that could come in handy or or planning or things that you do that help you get out on the water?

SPEAKER_02 39:05

Um well, I mean, I I always have my eye on where we're going. Now, now I've never like uh the main thing uh uh that I that I do in music right now is tour with a band called the Lonesome Ace String Band. And uh the other two guys in the band are John Showman and Max Malone, and they're dear old friends of mine, like almost like brothers, but they neither one of them really fishes. So uh I can't when it's the three of us traveling around, I can't be like, hey, let's add a day on, let's like, okay, like let's take a day off in between here and here and fish here. Because like they both have kids, and when they're on the road, they need to be like making money and like working, right? They they don't want to take a day off if it were me. Uh there'd be a lot more stops and days off. But I still get it where I can. What I'll often do, that's sort of how I started fishing out in Western Canada, is like, because you know, in the summer, I'd you know, we'd be playing at festivals in in Alberta or BC, and I might have a tour, might be a week or two, and then I'd be like, okay, cool. Uh I'm going to at the end of this week, I've already paid my, you know, I'm in Calgary. Yeah. Uh, so I'm gonna take the next five days and rent a car and drive down to Fernie, BC, and fish the elk for a week. And I and I would never have been able to afford to um, I would never be able to afford to have just gone on like to fly out west just to go fishing. But when all my expenses are covered, I'm already out there, I'm already out there and it's just a car rental. I'm back in, you know, car rentals are really expensive these days, but like they used to used to be really cheap. I know. What happened? Drive over there, yeah, it's crazy. And uh, and then again get where I'm going. And I have friends that I met through music who I can stay with, and even like uh in that case, that's a river. The Elk River is a river that I've I've sort of started going to and fished a lot in the tributaries of the Elk um and uh met a couple uh folks down there who are through music who are guides and like so got some you know you know some uh information and access that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise and and great friends too. Um so yeah, it it's it's it's all tied together. I mean, I even even to the point I I'm so sneaky that sometimes like like I'll all at a live show, if I can fit it in somewhere, like you know, if we're playing uh, you know, play a medley of and one of the tunes is this Deer River tune that I wrote, I'll mention something about fishing because inevitably if I do at the record table, some guy will sidle up and we'll we'll start talking fishing. And I've had I've gotten a lot of hookups that way. Yes, that's right. And ended up on the water and or like next time you come through, you gotta stop. I've got, you know, I'll take you out fishing. And I've that's happened a bunch over the years, and I'm sort of I I I I'm cunning. I make it I I'm aware that it's that that there's a possibility of a of a fishing hookup almost anywhere we go.

Jason 42:24

What's one of your more memorable times on the river or while you were fishing while you were on the road? So playing music and fishing, anything that stands out in your brain where maybe you learned something or something that really stands out in your brain?

SPEAKER_02 42:37

I'll tell you one that really stands out in my brain. I was in uh I was on a tour in Australia, probably, I don't know, probably about almost 10 years ago, and uh and we were down in Tasmania, and I was I was just on tour as a sideman, so I had no control over you know the scheduling of the tour or anything. But we I think we had a day off or we had a morning off or something. We were staying in Hobart, uh, Tasmania, and uh I was able to borrow the the vehicle we were touring in, and I sniffed it out that there was um I guess Tasmania is famous for it's got some some crazy like lake fishing for big rainbows, but I sort of there was no way I was gonna be able to make that work because that was gonna be more of like a a full-day trip. But I but I saw there was some some creeks pretty close within an hour of town, so I got the car and I and I headed up, and sure enough, beautiful little like and really a creek, not much probably wider than about you know seven, eight feet, ten feet or something, you know, and and you know started fishing, just looked like looked like home, really, and you know, fishing, caught catching a few few trout. There was browns in there, and uh having a great time, but like I was in this one pool and I was like, there's something rising, right? And at first I thought it was a big fish, but I was like, what the hell is that? It was like almost like something coming up and surfacing, and I was like, God, I couldn't figure out what it was, and I was in there with in the pool, wasn't a pool much bigger than this room. I was in there for probably you know 20 minutes, half an hour with whatever this thing was rising. And I get out at the end of the day, and I walk back to the car, and there's all these signs, big warning signs, saying that there's platypus in the river.

Jason 44:30

Okay, and those are and these are dangerous, apparently.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Yeah, apparently the male platypus has got like claws that it will attack you, apparently. Okay, and and that's definitely what I was seeing was uh I was I was in a pool with this platypus, uh, probably a few of them. And they're like they're I I I think they're about the size of a beaver or something. Yeah, you know, and uh with these damn things probably swimming right around my legs. I mean, I you asked me what I learned from that. I was, I guess, be beware of platypus.

Jason 45:05

Uh I wish we could end the conversation on that. Beware of platypus, but I've got to get the shit.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

We'll get a shirt made.

Jason 45:13

We'll edit it and throw this at the end. Yeah. Beware of platypus. That is, yeah. I've never heard of any that's the first story I've heard of anyone interacting with a platypus. It's always just been something from my childhood. Like this, these critters live in Australia.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

They don't look, but that's that's Australia for you, though. It's like everything there is gonna will sting you or bite you or something.

Jason 45:37

Chris, I want to read something that you wrote, and this is from the liner notes of uh an album that you put out that is uh I don't know if I want to call it a fishing album, uh, but it is kind of a compilation of a bunch of your uh songs that you've written and some that you made for the album that have kind of been inspired by fishing and fishing experiences. And it's called Road to the River. That's the name of the album. But uh this is something you wrote for the liner notes to just kind of explain your uh relationship with fishing and music. If you were to look into the Parachute Royal Wolf Fishing Fly, or at the history of West Virginia Fiddletoon Queen of the Earth, Child of the Sky, you'd find they both share stories of evolution that span centuries and continents, and are filled with colorful characters. Or if you want, you could forget about all that and be left with two highly useful things of beauty. What more could you ask for? Fishermen often find a way to relate anything in life to fishing, and musicians can take a similar microcosmic event. Given the right beverages and a willing audience, I can go on and on about how fishing and music have so many parallels. Rhythm, timing, touch. But it can start to get a bit abstract. And after a while, what's left of my audience can look pretty glazed over. However, I do know that the two things have influenced each other in my life since the music on this album is a result of that. I'll try to briefly explain. So when I read that, it made me think a lot about how we bring parallels of our lives, whether it's music or other things, into fly fishing. Not just music, um, but like I talk about a lot on the show. I talk about flying airplanes and how there's similarities in there for me. But for you, I wonder if you could speak a little bit to when you started to realize that and how uh maybe some of the more important things that are similar for you.

SPEAKER_02 47:53

Well, uh I I'll go back to that to that example I gave at the beginning of that thing you just read. Um one one thing it really occurred to me. So I I I got into um so I've played bluegrass, but I actually got into you know um something that they call old time music, which is even like sort of pre-bluegrass uh uh because bluegrass actually people think of bluegrass as like an ancient form of music. It's not, it's around the same age as rock and roll. We won't get it too too into it, but bluegrass is a sort of a commercial uh type of music that was invented by a certain person, Bill Munro, in in you know, in around the 40s, and it was always a uh performance-based type of music. But one of the um one of the um types of music that that influenced it is a big part of bluegrass is what people call old time. So old time fiddle music, so old fiddle tunes, right? So specifically like learning, I've you know, played a lot of of uh banjo and guitar with fiddle players and learned lots of these old fiddle tunes. And so these that's sort of the world I got into uh in music, and with these old fiddle tunes, you you know, they go back, you know, most of them come from uh uh come from overseas to to you know from England and Ireland and Scotland, you know, in even Germany and like all over the place, but especially the Scots-Irish stuff, those tunes came over from there and they they lived there for hundreds of years. They came over here, you know, got into the Appalachians, and people, you know, brought the tunes with them, spread out, lived very isolated lives, you know, and kept those tunes, and those tunes developed in their own way, and in, you know, in each each person would play the tune a little bit different and had their different take on the tune, and and you know, and then there's recorded musics happened, and then these tunes, that some of those in regional individual styles got conglomerated, and that's like a very brief, sort of a brief sort of overview of of what one way of looking at those fiddle tunes. Well, when I got into fly tying, I was like, well, Jesus, this is like, you know, you start learning about the flies, and the royal wolf was it was an it reminded me, it reminds me a lot of of these tins. So it's like you take uh, you know, you go back, you got the royal coachman, right? The the original Royal Coachman wet fly, one of the oldest fly patterns probably that they know goes back forever. And then at some point when they started uh uh started dry fly fishing, whenever that was, you know, they you know started they tied the hackle around it and then they made the royal wolf into the the werewolf dry fly. And then it comes over, you know, it can comes over to North America and you know they get in the catskills and the and the the rivers are different over here, and the the materials they have available are over here, and you sort of end up with different variations on it, and then you end up with uh you know the you know Lee Wolf comes up with the Wolf series of flies, you know, and and so then you've got this other, you know, this this other take on an on an old fly, and you in learning about that, you learn about Lee Wolf, and you learn about like his whole life and and all his stories and all the crazy stuff that he did. And then sometime in the 60s or you know, late 50s, 60s, they start coming up with the with with the parachute, you know, tying the hackle in that way, and then the the the fly, you know, uh the fly evolves again, and with you know, and as I sort of got into that, I was like, this is exactly like learning about that fly and and how it you know got to where it is. It's exactly like learning about an old fiddle tune. It's the exact same thing, and the way it got, you know, it's you know, the way it got moved around and changed by different people. And as you learn it, uh as you as you sort of learn about it, you learn about all these interesting characters, because you when you learn about fiddle music, you learn about all these cool old fiddle players and like all their weird lives and quirkiness, and in some cases, you even get to meet them. Um and I it just that was like a real like to answer your question, that was a moment that I was like, this is exactly the same thing. Like I've sort of just gotten into the same thing here and uh in the in a in a different way. Because that's what again, one of the things I loved about music and specifically traditional music was this connection, uh, this connection to the past and this sort of unbroken uh this unbroken chain.

Jason 52:44

Something that you brought up there that I think is interesting to me is how they came over and they had these songs and these ideas, or you could say these flies, and they were kind of in these think of almost like pods where they live in these areas and they and then and pass them on, you know, and they're moving from place to place geographically and and then there's a somewhere in there, there's a there's an element of discovery, right? Just like I discovered your music and h however someone discovers it, I think that that's something interesting in fly fishing as well. I'm curious about your ideas on that, but going to new places and finding new ways to fish and you know, you're kind of like a guest into this mystique or into this uh part of fishing or music maybe that you didn't know existed before, and I think that's really special.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's it's definitely it's it's it's it's such a big part of the journey. It's what makes it so interesting.

Jason 53:50

Do you find that when you are uh fishing that helps your music, or is that just fishing is something that is totally separate? It's just for fun, it's like a ha a hobby that you have, or is there any part of fishing that like how does fishing find its way into your music, or or maybe why it does is maybe a better question.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

Okay, so fishing does not help my my career as a professional musician. That's something I've really learned because it takes up a lot of my time and I I lose my focus. Um I I lose uh and this is I'm just talking about as a professional musician, because you got to remember that being a musician, being a professional musician is different than just being someone who plays music. Because being a professional musician means you're uh you know an independent musician. That means you're you're a graphic designer, you're a you're a a website, you keep a bunch of websites, you're a booker, you're a travel agent, you're doing all this other stuff. It's very unromantic if you actually, once you, once you get under the hood of what the life of a professional musician is, uh, and you have to be on top of so many things. And when I my like I'm real good, like this is I'm getting into the good season because I I I I although I fish all year round, you know, I I can I get a lot of work done. I've always like done most of my writing and my hard work sort of in the winter time. Uh, but like things fall apart for me in the spring and in the summer a little bit because it's like I'm on the road and then when I'm home, I just want to be fishing, and then I'll lose my, you know, like for booking a band, you got to be working every day, you know, you got to be on top of it. You gotta make that money, man.

Jason 55:37

I get it. You gotta get out there and hustle.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Yeah, you're good. Yeah. So unfortunately, I would say fishing does not help my career as a professional musician, but uh it it does help. I mean, I I you know, on a on a more sort of base level, I mean, all music is is communicating, all art is, commute is communicating yourself. It's a form of communication and it's a way of you know putting your spirit and your soul out in the world. And I definitely think fishing improves the human being I am and the person I am and improves my spirit and my soul. And I think the uh the amount of time like on again, on a practical level, like these days, uh, you know, thanks to these things, I'm holding up my phone, uh, you know, it's we're we live such distracted lives. Uh I no matter how crazy and distracted my life gets and how I feel like I'm just so like scattered and all over the place, still it's never been any match for fishing. Because when I get out on the water, I don't think of anything but fishing from the moment I start till I get off the water. So I'm never thinking about my phone, I'm never thinking about money, I'm never thinking about social media. I to, you know, then that's been a concept my whole life. It's the it's it's one of the few things in my life that when I start doing it, I am just so focused. And that in this day and age, I think that's so rare to have those super focused moments. I mean, I'm sure as a fighter pilot that's built into the profession. Uh um, but it's you know, it's it's in there as I sort of alluded to with music. When I'm actually playing music, um, I have that the I'm totally focused, and I'm not thinking I'm in sort of I'm in the in the uh in the zone, but I but that's one thing I I I love about fishing, and I think that's just such a healthy thing to have in your life, to have something that that that's doing that to you, and in that way, I think fishing definitely helps my music.

Jason 57:48

Yeah, I think that a couple of things you said there. Uh we generally would talk about it in terms of compartmentalization, and like you would symbolically remove your patches before a mission, meaning like you no names, no squadron, no like everything is gone. I am just here, like I am here for the mission from the brief through the debrief. And that would be like, and you wouldn't go like if guy had his patches off, you wouldn't even like go ask him a question about work. Like if there was a question about the schedule or something, like if a dude had his patches off, like uh well, I'll get him when he's done debriefing because he's in like you left that. That was sacred time for that. And the more I see it, the more I see the parallels like we've been talking about. But uh I think that it's almost it's almost humorous to me that you say fishing doesn't make you a better musician, but perhaps unfortunately for you, maybe music makes you a better fisherman. Sounds like it does work the other way where music is helping you, right?

SPEAKER_02 58:51

Look, look, no, music it uh I mean, I I'm just saying I've said just professional, just like because it just it just that it really inspires my music, and it definitely like you know, you can't, you know, you you get up, you know. I I I got into this summer, but uh I was I I got really into like being out on the water before the sun com came up and I was out you know fishing paupers for bass out on the lake. Yeah, uh I did a lot of that this summer. Um, and it was just like every uh every morning is a masterpiece.

Jason 59:25

Yeah. Well, there's value to that, right, Chris? There's definitely value to that as an artist to be able to go someplace and be a part of that and feel that way, and then come back to that art and work and to empty your brain almost like meditation or something, just to be present and to feel present. And you know, because you at the end of the day, part of being a musician too, you gotta think up those songs. You gotta there's a big, huge creative piece, and that creative part of your brain needs to be fed and watered and put to bed too.

SPEAKER_02 59:55

Yeah, and it also it it makes you it makes you it humbles you every time you're out there. It's really easy in these professions to you know to become, you know, even despite your best efforts, it's really easy to feel like the whole world's revolving around you, and it's just good you get out there and and you're humbled every time you're out there by the beauty of it and the and the grand scale of it. I I I mean that's uh more almost more than anything is the most healthy thing, I think.

Jason 1:00:24

Yeah. When you're out there fishing, uh do you know, or what is it through memory, or is it through being present that you transfer ideas into your music? Like, are you on the river or driving home from the river and you're like, oh, that'd be a good song, or you know, when you sit down to write a song, are you is that where your mind goes, or what's that creative process like with regard to fly fishing?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:50

Yeah, not defin not so much memory. Now, to be to just to be clear, when um most of like the the music that that I've been inspired by is what I I would refer to as tunes as opposed to songs. So like songs are have words, tunes are instrumental. That's just like the way we refer to it and the type of music. I've been more influenced, uh I I've I've never written a song about fishing. I've never I thought it would be nice to do, but I've I often find them pretty clunky, uh, and I've never had any success. It's I've mentioned fishing in my songs, uh, but I've written a lot of instrumentals that to me are in are are I wrote them about places that I fish. Now I don't know that anybody would notice them. Some of them, some of them definitely I think sound rivery.

Jason 1:01:42

Rivery. That's that's what I mean. But um yeah, but if you think of if if that's what's making you think of it or is motivating you, then I guess that is what it's about.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Yeah, yeah, and it's more of a more of a feeling, like a almost like a hangover of the feeling you had when you were in that place. Now, I definitely think of of I definitely sometimes get hit with lines for songs, like because I am a songwriter too. Um, and uh I often will will get an idea for a song and have it maybe have the words popping around sort of my back of my brain, and then I'll come off the river and I might write. I always like write little lines that I think of down. You probably can get too as a writer. Cool. Right? Uh so that that definitely happens occasionally.

Jason 1:02:27

Oh, that's really cool. Chris, is there anything else that you want to pass along? Uh, we're gonna start wrapping it up, but is there anything else that you'd like to say about music and fly fishing and why that connection is special for you or advice to other people that are out there that have this professional careers that maybe see some parallels in their uh line of work with fly fishing?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

I'm not sure that I I I nothing's no advice uh is popping off the off the top of my head, but I've really enjoyed talking to you about fishing. As I said, I love I love to do this. I could I could chat for another hour.

Jason 1:03:02

Yeah, that's cool. Um all right. I just want to give you an opportunity if there's something that you want to say that we um you don't feel like you uh we wanted to bring something up or tell a story or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:11

Well, I'll tell I'll I'll tell you what, uh uh if for anyone who's listening, um so that that album that you that you mentioned, Road to the River, when I put it out, which was probably about seven or eight years ago, um I donated all the profits to uh um to a water advocacy group out in in Fern EBC called the Elk River Alliance. Um the the the album sort is sort of out of print now and and isn't really available. Uh I sometimes have a few when I'm when I'm traveling around, but I'm I'm gonna put it up on band camp uh and again donate any money that comes off the downloads of those. So probably uh by the time this episode airs, uh maybe I'll send you uh the link to that. Um and so you could, if anyone's interested in hearing the the songs and you could read the liner notes and uh donate a bit of money to the Elk River Alliance, uh, that would be a possibility. So that's I'll leave you with that idea.

Jason 1:04:12

All right, yeah, we'll definitely link to that in the show notes. And before I ask my last question, uh what else can we throw in there for the show notes? How can people find out more about you and listen to your music or maybe see you on tour? I mean, it really is if you like that kind of music, which I certainly do, yeah. The string, the string ban is awesome. And yeah, I I just I think it's great. So I'm happy to put it out there for folks.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

Thank you. Yeah, so so I've got my own website, uh Chriscool.com, C-H-R-I-S-C-O-O-L-E.com. Uh and uh all my gigs are up there. Um I also have a lot of teaching material, obviously uh ban banjo and a little bit of guitar stuff, but uh uh uh I do uh online workshops and I travel around and teach at workshops and stuff like that too. And then my band is the Lonesome Ace String Band. And that we can maybe put that that website up as well. And we're we're around, you know. I'm we're I'm about to go out west and uh be in the Pacific Northwest and you know the uh the prairies and we I just got back uh from the tour of the northeast and the Midwest. Uh so I'm around. If you want to wanna hunt me down, I'm I'm usually rambling around somewhere. So hopefully our paths will cross. And if they do, please come up to the record table and talk about fishing with me. Nothing.

Jason 1:05:33

All right, that sounds good. We will link to those things in the show notes. And like I said, I'm definitely uh looking forward to listening to your music while I uh work in the studio too. So thank you on a personal level for that. Thanks, Jason. Last question, you ready?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:49

Yeah.

Jason 1:05:49

If you could go back to when you first started fly fishing and give yourself two pieces of advice, one more tactical, one more philosophical. What would you uh tell yourself to help you progress as a fly fisher?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

Uh okay, so tactical uh and and really specific was uh um is knowing that for every the you know for every fish, whether you're you're you're fishing to a to a specific fish or to a specific lie where you suspect a fish is sitting, um, there's always a sweet spot. And by that I mean like you you you there's always an easy, it was sort of going back to what I was saying earlier about all the best musicians find the easy way to do things. I think that the fishermen do that too. So there's always an easy way, there's always an easiest, it's not always easy, but there's always an easiest way, and therefore the best way of presenting your fly to that spot. So again, Ray Bergman called them the soft spots, and there's always a good way, and sometimes that's gonna mean getting out of the river and completely getting your s moving around and getting in a different place. I wish I'd known that before when I when I was first fishing, because I thought it was all casting and just going upstream and you know and and uh thinking a bit a bit more on that. And uh yeah, and then on on uh on on a more philosophical level, uh um just keeping it simple and uh you know, I honestly wish I I love fishing books, but I wish I hadn't read so many fishing books when I was younger, because I think they confused me more than anything else for a long time. Until I'd fished, like until I'd, you know, or I guess let's just say time on the water is more important than anything you're gonna see on YouTube, any book you're ever gonna read, uh Time on the Water is sort of the only it's the only way forward.

Jason 1:07:57

I like it. Keep it easy, keep it simple. Those are good tactical and philosophical pieces of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:02

I'm sure I'm not the only person who's answered the question in that way.

Jason 1:08:05

Uh yeah, we get a lot of different answers. Keep it simple is one of one of many good ones, but uh both good answers and good conversation today, and I really appreciate you taking. The time to be on the show. And uh I'm looking forward to listening to your music, like I said, and I thank you for putting it out there and wish you all the best.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:23

Right on. Thanks, Jason.

Jason 1:08:25

Chris, we talked about this a little bit when we weren't recording, but uh can I twist your arm and get you to play uh a song for the listeners and something maybe that has a fishy background to it?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:37

No uh no twisting necessary. Okay. Uh yeah, I I I've I've got this beautiful banjo that I was just showing you that my friend uh Glenn Carson uh made and customized and gave to me as a gift. Um and maybe I could send you some pictures because the listeners would probably be interested to see some of the the the amazing uh craftsmanship on this instrument because it because it uh it's got a uh trout uh engraved on the tail piece of the banjo and it's got a sunfish uh inlay on the back. Yeah, I'll show I'll send you some pictures and maybe we can put those in there. But I'll I'll play a tune on it um because it it it sounds as good as it looks. Um and I'll play a tune that I wrote uh that's called Copper Run. And a lot of the tunes that I've written have been about rivers that I've fished, and this one is not a river uh that I fished, but Copper Run is a is a is a river that I read about in a really great book uh by Walter Weatherall uh called Upland Stream. Uh and uh and it's uh a fishing book, but it's not uh it's it's prose, it's just sort of stories, uh short stories about fishing. And uh he wrote this beautiful uh uh one of the stories is called Copper Run, and he just describes this little creek that that sort of broke my heart, and uh I wrote this too. Love it. Thank you. Cool. Thanks thanks for asking me.

Jason 1:11:15

Thanks for listening to the Wade Out There Fly Fishing Podcast. You can learn more about some of the topics we discussed in today's episode show notes. For more fly fishing ideas, stories, and artwork, check out my blog and online gallery at WadeOutThere.com. If you want to make Wade Out There a part of your own fly fishing journey, please subscribe and share. Until next time, Wade Out There.