Fishing in November?

Last episode of November on Michigan Wild this week. An episode all about fishing rivers for steelhead with Shane Rodenburg. Shane has dove into river fishing the last 4 years and is absolutely torn up with it. Nate being an avid hunter is still slightly perplexed why someone would purposely target fish instead of whitetails this time of year. 

However the more time Nate spends talking with people who have a passion for fishing the more enlightened he gets. Nate and Shane discuss the many parallels there are between chasing river fish along with whitetails throughout the fall. Scouting and having an adequate amount of time are some important factors that allow guys to be successful at a high level. 

You can follow Shane along at misteelheader on Instagram. 

Thanks for listening to the episode, if you would like to support Michigan Wild farther check out Michigan Wild's shop at michiganwild.hollercommerce.com.

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[00:00:00]

Welcome to the Michigan wild podcast.

We're just here walking around. We're going to go set a tree stand. Don't worry. My dad's weird. He never shot a huge buck. I just shot a fricking big buck.

Oh, you got a. Go get that one, Henry.[00:01:00]

What's going on guys. Welcome to another episode of Michigan wild. Hopefully you have enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving week and got to spend some a good quality time with the family, eating some good food, doing all those wonderful things, and hopefully you got to spend some time outside. I know I got to do that with my family.

And got a pretty sweet podcast in the pipeline coming up. Yes, HD shot his first buck. So that as a podcast, we were going to be recording here very soon with him. He's super excited about the whole entire thing. And man, it's tough to beat that that feeling you get as a parent. Continue the generation the next generation get out there and enjoy the outside and he's hooked on it, man.

He, he loved it. Did awesome. Got to do that with me and Ashley in the blind with him. So yeah, another Roosevelt. That's a natural born killer, I think for that. So yeah, we're we had a great, holiday week, holiday weekend. We're wrapping it up here pretty [00:02:00] quick. But Yeah, this this episode is going to be one I do with Shane and he, it's a little different, a little different podcast that's dropping.

We talk about steelhead fishing. He's a big time steelhead guy. He's been doing that for a handful of years. And when I'm out there chasing, whitetail and, sitting in the tree stand for hours on end, he's out there, in his boat or, wading through the river trying to catch a steelhead.

So I'm such a rookie when it comes to some of that stuff. And, I made that pretty clear to a lot of different. People and through the podcast last few times, I've done some, fishing podcasts, but I'm really intrigued by it. And I love talking to someone who, I love talking to anyone who's passionate about the outdoors and whatever that may be, whatever game they're chasing, but yeah, just sitting down with him and having a really good conversation about how he attacks, rivers and how he does these things.

And It's, yeah I smiled through most of it just hearing how passionate he was about it and, there's a lot of I think like a lot of things, when you see the Instagram or, Facebook posts about a guy holding the buck or holding, holding the big fish, sometimes it's man that's so awesome.

And you might not really [00:03:00] realize what it takes to get to that position. And then the more I've, do this kind of a thing with a family and, have successful hunts and all these things, you realize how much effort and time and, resources got to get get allocated for that to be successful year in and year out.

And I've been very blessed to have, the job I have and the family I have to do this. So hopefully if you guys can take anything out of it, that. Fishing is another wonderful thing you can get after and, enjoy here in Michigan. We have a lot of cool rivers and waters and all that kind of stuff to do.

So if you if you want to, learn more and do that kind of thing, we talk about cause I'm in that process of not knowing anything. So I think it's just you got to get some seat time in and maybe, you can reach out to some friends and there's a lot of people out there that really want to help.

People do well and be successful, but at the day you gotta, you kinda gotta figure some stuff out yourself. They can point in the right direction, but to have that sustained success, it doesn't just happen overnight. And, I want to roll that into the Whitetail world right now too, because we're winding [00:04:00] down, the, some of the better days are behind us, through archery season or through gun season.

And then, yeah, we have, I have a couple of podcasts lined up. Want to go over, the last few weeks of of the year and converge into this late season. I've had some great hunts late season still. So you guys aren't, you guys aren't out of the. Out of the woods.

Yeah, the game's not over yet. You could still, tag a deer You know, maybe shoot a target buck or anything like that, but that kind of wraps back into what I was talking about, that you have to have some seat time in, you have to understand what deer are doing, have the right properties for these things, and it's never a bad move to go scout.

You might have to burn some hunts just to go walk around and figure some things out, and if it doesn't help you maybe for this season, it'll help you for next season, or two years from now and the crop rotation is the same, all these things are going to do it, but I think just get out there.

Put some seat time in either sitting in a spot on Destination Food Source maybe or, walking around seeing what you can learn. So make sure you guys take advantage of the, the next month that we have of season. [00:05:00] I'm hoping for me, I don't have any buck tags, but I'm hoping to shoot a couple more does.

That's my, not like a high priority, but I just try to have a, Do my part and shoot, a handful of does every year. The couple of opportunities I have had with a gun in my hand, just that was with Henry waiting for him to shoot a buck. So I didn't really get the right shot at a doe.

I've been out a couple of times, but they're either the doe is pretty little, same size as the fawn or whatever it may be. So I'm waiting for that right size, the right size deer to shoot. And I tried to take the approach. I don't know who it was. I listened to something one time.

It might have been like Wayne Sutton that has that thing up in Turtle Creek up north. They have a managed area. And he talks about doesn't matter time of year. If they see a doe that's over three and a half years old, they shoot it. So I always try to target those does. And I have a handful of them, I believe, every year.

That I can go after, but man, they're hard to see consistently. But late seasons are usually a good time for me to shoot a few. So hoping to be able to get the opportunity, but yeah, hopefully you guys enjoy this episode. Like I said, it's a little different talking about fishing, but you [00:06:00] can, you'll be able to tell the passion that Shane has for doing what he does.

And yeah, I've, I'll probably drop in the the show notes, like his Instagram page. So if you guys have any questions for him, he's a super cool dude and he. He's more than willing to, give anyone kind of advice. And I'm sure if you want to ask some basics of him, he was more than happy to help with that.

So give his page a follow. He's got some sweet pictures of some fish he's caught. And yeah, like everything intrigues me with these river fish, man. They're just pretty, they're just a really cool fish. They all seem like they're a little different. But yeah, if you need something to me, if you're too depressed in the Whitetail woods, you can go, go do some wading in the river, hop on a boat and have fun doing that this this winter.

So thanks guys. Appreciate all the support. Have a good rest of your week.[00:07:00]

All right. Welcome to another episode of Michigan wild. I have Shane Rodenberg, correct? Did I say that right? Shane Rodenberg. Got it. Perfect. So this is going to be, it's, I have a Roosevelt. So I feel ya, but so no, we're This is going to be a little different episode. We we're going to be talking about fishing in November and October.

And this is the guy Hey, why don't you just give us a little, update, like who you are, how old you are, you live in the greater Grand Rapids area, this kind of breakdown, what, why, and then like, why do you like fishing so much too? Yeah, no, definitely. Yeah. Like you said, my name is Shane Rodenberg.

I'm originally from Kent city. I'm, I live out here in Muskegon now and the, I don't know. So I grew up wrestling, man. [00:08:00] And when you're wrestling, you got you're just, you're, everything's so you're scheduled, you're down to the T on everything. And for me with steelhead fishing, that's how it is.

And even not so much the salmon, but definitely the steelhead, there's days. You go out and you'll, hook 20, 30 fish and there seems like they're eating every single color in the book, spawn, bead, jig, and then like it's been lately, it seems they don't want to eat anything, spawn, jig, bead, but, so yeah, just another thing that helps fill the blanks.

It's very talk about wrestling, your backstory with that. Like wrestling is a lifestyle. Oh, 100%. Oh, that's still had fish into a team, man. Yes. In my opinion, that's still had fish into a T. Anybody can go out and steal that fish, but man, I'm not the greatest fisherman in the world by any means.

I'm not saying that, but. I just I feel like I'm above, above the average. You're, yeah, you're striving to do it at a high level. Like you're putting in the effort to do it at a high level. Like I, that's how I tag Whitetail, honey. Like I [00:09:00] know I'm not the greatest, but I put it in enough effort to be good, like the effort in for it.

Man, that's what I, I got a, I got an app on my phone. It's got. All the rivers I fish are marked in my favorites with the flow charts. I'm like today it's been raining. I first thing I did six o'clock this morning, open up my phone. I'm looking at what river I'm, I'm looking at fishing here in the future, what we're getting, cause everything's been so low.

So anytime we get like lately, it's been anytime we get any little bit of rain, fricking fishing, you get a little bit, a split second of time there where fishing is going to be hot. And then. Drops back off. Okay. So I do wanna so you wrestled in college too, right? Yeah. Did I? I did. Yeah. So how in the world did you find time to do anything when you were being in wrestling in college?

And, 'cause wrestling seasons like full swing, like right now, like that's tournaments had going and then college is like an all year thing. So did you have time really in college to do some of these things or, um, how'd you make it work? I'll tell you, I wrestled Division [00:10:00] 2, so you get a little bit more time than you would be in in the D Win circuit, but it was tough to have, have time to really do anything, but you find a way, when when you're addicted to something, I went, where I went to school, we didn't have we didn't have steelhead, so I was more of, We had, they had mule deer though.

So I I went from whitetail hunting to mule deer hunting, and that was a whole fricking thing, man. And I like this because even, so a lot of people talk about how, they go to college or they have a sports schedule or whatever. So a lot of these guys, they don't really get back into the outdoors until, they graduate college.

Dude, when I was in college and when I was playing football in high school, all these sports, dude, I still was in the woods, and they did not stop me granted. I maybe didn't go as much as I wanted, but I didn't, I wasn't afraid to hop in the truck and drive, our, to go do something longer, I made time, cause it, like you said, you're, it's a passion and you're addicted to it.

That kind of stuff. Where I was at, man, I was in a great area in terms of the outdoors. We had cutthroat trout, a bunch of little [00:11:00] trout creeks, trout streams. We had mule deer, pronghorn, whitetail deer. There's elk. Oh man. Freaking, bighorn sheep.

And I think there's only, I think they do a tag. I want to say they do a big horn sheep hunt, but it's like a lottery tag. It's an expensive tag. It's an expensive tag to draw, but so we did. And, we did. Yeah. I just, and it was another weird thing, man, is we had, 25, 30 guys on the team.

Maybe two or three of them didn't hunt or fish, so it was something that kind of everybody, and everyone, yeah, definitely, we'd be out fricking state park shooting clay pigeons, all that. Living life, man. I love it. And it literally yeah. Living life. We fricking class practice and then hunting, fishing, shooting, ranching, love it.

Love it. So now were you a big, were you a big river Fisher before college or did you start this when you're younger or when did you start doing that? I wasn't like, we did it when I was in high school and younger. I was more,[00:12:00] I hunted and I fished, but definitely not, to this degree, I'm more fish for bass.

And then like my dad had buddies that steal head fish. They take us out for salmon stuff. And then my grandpa's best friend ran a charter for years out of Pentwater. We did that. But I didn't get really big into the river fishing until after once I got, and I did, a little bit of fly fishing out Wyoming, but yeah, definitely once I got home is when it literally took over.

So how long has this taken over your life for? How many years would you say then? I'm going on a year. Year four of nice bet. I'd have to say I spend, I'm on the, I'm on the water three to five days a week. Oh man. I would say three to five days a week. And it may just be two or three hours after work or something.

Either way that's. Yeah, I know guys like coworkers, I'm in the construction field, so some of the guys they'll go quick, hit a hole or whatever before work in the morning, they're doing stuff like [00:13:00] that. So that works really well for them. And that's, what's cool about, I think that's like the allure to fishing for people because they're like, man, I can go in 30 minutes, just Be really successful or have good opportunities.

Now, we did have a little backstory for this. So you talked about how like one year with deer hunting, you had, you put all this time in one year, nothing to show for it. The following year, you sit for three hours and shoot a sweet buck. So it doesn't happen at whitetail hunting, but I think those opportunities are much more few and far between compared to whipping a line out in the water and you could, you could hit.

Granted, you still have to. There is a point with like me as a rookie who could go out and do it and get completely lucky and have no idea what's going on when guys like you, have mass, not mastered it, but have a really good understanding of how to do it. You put yourself in a much higher odds to be successful for that hour or that two hours.

So now, you're, just as you're seeing on Instagram, I'm worried about shooting deer in October, November, and here you are, you're catching some sweet fish, dude. Like they're pretty, [00:14:00] they seem big, yeah, color on them. So what are some of the things you like, I guess we can go through your October or whatever this fall fishing, what have you been catching?

I would say. So I had, I was busy this like September, August into the King run, so I didn't get out and do much salmon fishing with. Salmon in the river, they're overrated. They're nasty. They're ugly. I'm in it for the, yeah, that's when they look like half dead or whatever.

Yeah. I'm in it for the enjoyment and they're fun to catch, but when, with the salmon comes to crowds and then it's just, and usually doesn't bring out the best of crowd. I'm not saying that also. All salmon fishermen are, but for the most part, every place, everywhere is packed.

You're not, no matter what, if you get a bigger, the bigger group of hunters you have in a group, there's going to be a few bad ones, the more you have, there's, that doesn't necessarily mean. Everyone's going to be bad. There's, I know a lot more good hunters than I know.

Bad hunters, cool. A whole bunch of people on one piece of property. That's going to, that one guy seems real bad for a long [00:15:00] time. So you're a hundred percent, right? Yeah. And and I have, I've only ever fished the river on a damn. When I was like 12 years old, my uncle, and there was so many dudes out there and yelling and cussing it's 1am, doing that.

And I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. Tony fellows, he was calling it combat fishing or something. I think is what he called it. Combat fishing, man. 100%. Yeah. He fishes all those big spots, yeah. So you didn't really get into the salmon. So then what would, what, like I'm super novice at this.

So salmon run, you missed out on. So what were you targeting then when you went after that, I go, I pretty much fish for steelhead 365 days a year, spring, summer, winter, fall, you get the king. There's just so many darn kings around when they're in, it's you might as well fish for them because you're going to catch them.

Yep. But I switched cause in with Kings, you're running bigger stuff, 14, 16 millimeter beads, big old globs of eggs. 15 pound meters, whereas with steelhead, you're down into, your eight, 10 millimeter beads, twelves, 10 [00:16:00] pound liters, six pound for real clear water, and it's all just a smaller setup.

So for me, come middle of September, I'm putting the salmon rods away and I get out my float, my center pin rod and it's all in the right. And you hook a lot of salmon. You lose a lot, you lose a lot of salmon, but we caught, I caught my earliest, I caught a fall run. Now there's a difference between a scam, a summer run fish and a fall run fish.

I don't know what much of the difference is other than I know, they're different. Different fish, the scams tend to run a little bit more on the skinnier side. They're not, the fall fish, they got shoulders to them. Yeah. And they're more of like a tube sock, yeah. They look like a Western, like every time people catching fish in the Western rivers, they're skinny and long.

That's what they look like compared to yeah. Like Barry Sander shoulders. No definitely catch those. So I hooked my first one middle of September and once I hooked that it was, yeah steel, steelhead started and then it's what it started out slow and then, it picks up and it's just sporadic because, a lot of [00:17:00] people think that these fish are just around all the time.

That's not the case. They're migrating, they're coming into the river, fall fish typically are chasing salmon, eating salmon eggs and just bulking up. And then a lot of these fish will hold over in the winter and then spawn in the spring. So is that consistent year to year or is there just too much water difference to like really have a history of the same general area, is it like this time of year every year you can have your hot spots?

Or is those spots constantly like revolving? Yeah, it's every day is different. Every day. Gotcha. Yeah. Every, today they're, today there's a tree. That, oh yeah, sitting right under and tomorrow that tree could be on. Yep. That's a good point. So that kind of keeps it exciting then.

Oh, cause you never know. And that's the thing too, is I have people hit, message me on Instagram and they're like, I'm not catching any fish. Am I in the right area? And I tell them all the time, yeah, you're in the right area. Are there fish there right now? It's hard to, it's hard to say, you'll catch them if they're there, but they're not there.

Good luck. Yeah. [00:18:00] It's simple, but that's the truth, right? It is too. You see what we're using. We're using, just a tiny little bead. Yeah. They crush it, man. Sometimes better than spawn. Okay. And I fished, I pre I pretty much fish primarily beads. I run a jig. From time to time and this year is the first year that I really started running spawn and I just I don't know.

I still I'm not convinced. I think of beads all year would be. I do. It's cheap. It's cheap. It's easy. You don't have to kill any fish. I don't care if people harvest. I don't eat the fish. So I have no reason to keep the fish. So you don't got to, clean fish and Like I said it's just it's like for me, like I, when I catch fish, I don't do it to eat them, like I, now when I shoot a deer, I would like to eat the deer.

I know I was going to eat that deer. That's a little different, but then I choose to, I choose to hunt a deer a certain way, or, if that's the preference, you as an angler, me as a hunter, you have to figure out what you like and. Man, I really like killing deer with a bow and I like killing with a gun.

That's that's the thing. So I can see how fishing is has that art to it, and [00:19:00] doing that. So like when you say a bead, like you can fish that off a boat, you can fish that. You're like waiting out there. What do you like to do? Do you like to go on a boat more often?

Are you waiting in rivers or what are you doing? I personally, I have a Saturn raft. It's like basically a drift boat. And I've honestly, I've done, I've done an all pretty much all of my fishing on the bank, but I would prefer if I had it my way, I'd be in the boat every day, but there's something that I really do like about, throwing on the waves and hiking the fricking miles in.

And it's just, it's fun, a little bit of hiking, a little bit of fishing. And you're just being, in the outdoors, it's cheaper than driving the boat around too, yeah. And it makes that fish so I had, I said this on a podcast earlier, but like I, I was hunting in Illinois and I was walking all over 80 degrees, and a buck came by one night and I just told myself, I was like, he is, I haven't walked enough miles to shoot him yet, cause I think there's like some of that, the effort put in.

That makes, no matter what that fish is, it just feels that much better. It could be one of the smaller fish you probably caught, but maybe it's the colors, [00:20:00] right? Or man, I walked way back in here and caught this fish and I'm by myself and all those things. Just, those are all the things that's so hard to explain to people who don't, haven't been brought up in it or haven't experienced it.

This is completely different than let's see you're playing pickup basketball, your buddies, great time, love doing it. You're having a good time, but like everyone has seen a layup go in or a three point shot go in. That's pretty simple, but not many of them know what it's like to go wade through a river, find this little hole, then you catch this fish that looks different than.

Any fish you caught that day or, they are similar, but there's different coloring and yeah, just that moment, no fish is exactly the same, no matter what every single fish you catch is going to, a bass is a bass. I can't tell a fricking bass apart for the most part, but when, any trout, brown trout, brook trout, steelhead, they've all got, they say it's like a trout.

Spot pattern is like your fingerprint, no one's the same. Yeah. That's why I think, that's why I think I'm always drawn to yeah. Catching a scene, a buddy with a giant bass is dude, that's awesome. But then I see like some of these [00:21:00] pictures, like not only is the fish different, but like the water's different, the rocks that are in there or whatever the setting is, it's just always, it's just cool.

That's why I don't like turkeys as much. I don't think, cause a turkey is a turkey to me, I love turkey hunt. Turkey hunt is cool. I love turkey hunt. A turkey's a Turkey, , like that's, no. You know what's funny is freaking, I told my wife for one of, we hadn't been together for that long.

We still lived in our apartment, and Covid hit, we went and her family has some cabin and some property down in Cassopolis. We went down there and spent a week, and I was Turkey out in the night, and her mom was just talking. Oh, yeah, there's so many turkeys out there. I literally told him, I was like, yeah, turkeys are dumb.

This will be over pretty darn quick. No, I spent all freaking week, man. Didn't even get a bird. Yeah. But that's how that goes. It's fun though. It's a good time. Okay. So let's see. Do you like using your boat? You like to use beads. You're more of you like doing the tactful fishing sounds like lighter poundage, a little more finesse going on.

That's and I'm sure when you hook into a [00:22:00] steelhead with that lighter setup, it's a whole nother experience. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Compared to a salmon setup and I use a center pin too, which is, it's a, it's no drag. So it's one, one to one. You're, yeah, when that fish, when that fish goes, if you're, if you don't give, he's not going, so it makes it a little bit. It's a little bit of a learning curve, but if you can, if you understand, float fishing it's pretty easy to, it'll, like I said, it'll take you, it took me, I caught, I started using the center pin and I think I caught my first fish within a week. And then it just, and then anything, once you learn it, you never forget it.

That's cool. Okay. I, this is just popped in my head. How often you fish, three to five days a week you're on the water. Let's say every week. That's a really good week. That would be a busy week of the, like in that week. Are you hitting like. Three to five different spots, or are you doing the same spot?

Will you give it a couple of days? Cause for me, like I'm thinking in my head, if I'm going to bow hunt, like three days in a week or gun hunt, like gun hunting, I'll probably, I'll [00:23:00] volume sit a little more with a gun cause I have bigger range, but if I bow hunt, like if I hunted three days in a week, the chance of me being in the same tree would be pretty slim and might do it.

But I would, I bounce, I like bouncing around. Is that kind of how fishing is in the river too? Like you go into like, all right, I'm going to here's my week. I know I can, fish. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, the weather's like this. So I'm tacking this spot Wednesday. We might have some rain coming in.

So I like you is that how broken down you guys get these rivers? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, come, just like you're talking, each section of rivers got, different rocks, different water levels to it. Yeah, just like anything that you get some rain, all this whole is going to fish real good.

Cause it's finally got, got some water, got some depths and in the, with the water level always constantly coming up and down some of these holes you're fishing are four foot. When you got. Foot less of water. It's only three foot fish aren't gonna sit there. Yeah, a little, but for the most part, I've got spots that I'll fish no matter what.

They're, they just hold fish. But yeah, it can get down to that, that detailed that's, see, that's the problem, man. Like for me I [00:24:00] like the detail of it. So yeah, to try to do this whitetail thing at a high level. And then I rabbit hunt too. Like I don't rabbit hunt like at extremely high level, but we try to go like once a weekend during season.

I like feel like I'm like, my brain's maxed out, but then I know if I go to this fishing thing and my wife will like it or Henry like it, it's one of those things like, dude, this is the whole, I'm going to like restructure how I, do things because I like to do things that like.

I don't need to be amazing at it, but I want to put forth, it's the same thing I use for golf okay, I sucked at golf. Like I was terrible at golf. Maybe once a year at a scramble or something and an 18 holes, you might use like two of my drives and maybe one of my putts, otherwise the rest of them.

Not a chance. So I got sick of that. So when I was like, I'm going to be a little bit, I want to be a little more competitive here so that I put some effort into it and I. So then I was like going to the dry range and like doing these things, like trying to go over and beyond, then all my game was getting better and I liked it.

It was nice. But then when I was doing that in the summertime, I wouldn't be scouting as much for [00:25:00] whitetails. So it's I had to find that hat medium. This year. My golf game was terrible. So it's you're just, it's this constant, constantly this like balancing act to what I want to do.

And man, every time I talk to someone like about fishing in a river and seeing that, like we, first of all, we have lots of rivers around bodies of water and do this then. So that'd be so much fun. Steelhead, trout, salmon guy, West Michigan is the place to be. Yeah. You don't have to go like. I go out of state to go chase big whitetails when I, people come to Michigan.

Oh, people come to Michigan for some steelhead and salmon, man. Crazy. Oh yeah. I, and it's so crazy is I've met man, some of my best friends I've met just in the last couple of years, since I've started, I got friends from New York, friends from Ohio, planning trips to come and induce it.

It's crazy what it does because Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, they all have steelhead and stuff too, because you are all connected to the great lakes there. But for whatever reason, man, people come to Michigan. Like it. Okay. So right now it's [00:26:00] November 21st. Did you fish today?

I did. I did. All right. Let's get a little, let's get an update. How'd you, how was your day to day? So low. Was it? Yeah yesterday we hooked fish yesterday. I fished yesterday, same spot I fished today, hooked fish yesterday, didn't hook fish today. Gotcha. What'd you hook yesterday? Did you have some steelhead?

Nice. Yup, nice big one. And it was one of them fricking things man, when you're fishing a bead. The bead, you peg the bead to keep the peg on the line. When the fish eats the bead and you set the hook, a lot of times that bead will pull down to the hook and a lot of, the biggest complaint on bead fishing is then, that, that bead is in the side of the mouth, like a pivot point.

When that. Yep. Fish is sitting there, head shaking, boom, you pop in your hook. And that's exactly what happened yesterday. I don't know. And it doesn't happen every time. It's just one of them things, but like I said, I just, I'd rather fish a bead. I'm 99 percent of the time I'm fishing a bead over anything.

So [00:27:00] that's why. You probably like it because it's not a guarantee, there, there is like that fish, right? That fish, every head shake is important. That's why I like bow hunting so much, because even though that deer is in range, there is so many things that could go wrong that, that will, I will not kill that deer.

So when it doesn't finally happen, I'm like it's just this emotional roller coaster and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it worked. And that's how that, You're setting yourself now. Okay. I'm not trying to be anti crossbow, but if I have a deer, 30 yards and in.

I feel like a crossbow would be like shooting a deer in my rifle at a hundred yards, like guarantee, that's how I feel, but now when I pull my bow back and compound, like there's a lot more, I just, it's not that, okay, I could care less, kill your deer. Like we're, we got tags. We got to kill all that.

But for me, I like having everything, it's not going to, it's not a guarantee. Even a crossbow is not a guarantee. It's just a much more of a guarantee, so like for me, like pulling that, I had to pull that bow back. I had to make sure I anchor, I had to do everything right. Make sure the deer's in the right [00:28:00] position.

I have to aim, all these things. So when I miss, or if I hit a branch, I don't see or anything like that. It's you're like, Oh my gosh, so then when everything happens, perfect, it's just yes. And that's, fishing with a, the kind of equipment you use.

Yeah. You like, you just said that B can hook, guys say that's what happens. The hook gets, so when you do get that beautiful fish that comes up, you're like, Oh gosh, everything came together. I love it. That's the thing too, is that, people that are getting into it. There's something that people don't think about is, when you're running like a jig with a wax worm or a night crawler, piece of shrimp, whatever, eggs, whatever your bait is, they're biting the bait.

They're putting the hook in their mouth. Whereas with the bead, they're not biting the hook. That bead is two, three inches from the hook. They're biting the bead and you're sliding that hook and, pulling that hook basically into their mouth. There's a technique to it for sure. There isn't, and it's fricking.

I've fished with, some seasoned vets, some guides, Justin, the owner of Blue Bead Company, a good friend of mine. I fish with him a lot. And even, even he has his days. It's just one of them things, man.[00:29:00] Okay. So how, so what are you doing?

Is this going to be something you're going to fish until there's ice on the river, right? Like you guys are out there. Oh yeah. Year round. We didn't get even what, two years ago, I don't think any river. That's so crazy. Even shoot, last year we were fishing, frickin four or five foot out.

Not gonna say which river, but there was an ice shelf that frickin stuck out, and I'm not even kidding you, we were, a foot from the end, we're using long, 11 foot, 11 and 12 foot rods we walk out on the ice shelf, drop the bait, or drop the feed, swear, catch and seal that.

One of the better days we had in the winter. That's so crazy. Really? I never thought that. Swear to God. Okay. So when you're doing that, okay. So I sit under those ice shelves. Yes. That's what I was just going to have to chill there. And then the water, cause that's where the currents last, cause it's a barrier. Yeah. Okay. And then you can just, ah, that's cool. That's super cool. So what do you do from like a gear perspective then? You can't fish for, I work outside in the winter time, so I can be out there all day, but I'm moving a lot, but I'm not like in water and doing all this kind of stuff.

What? Obviously [00:30:00] there's probably you have like certain gear for certain times of the year. Are you wearing waders and just like jacket and just ripping or like, how the heck do you guys do this in the wintertime? I'm just thinking frozen water and catching fish is like a recipe for my fingers to freeze up.

That's the, the main, the biggest reason I can't get my wife to steal that fish more is the freaking cold. And, but that, and some of the best, some of the best steelhead fishing that I, and I'm fairly new to this. Full on, steal that addiction. But some of the best days I've had are fricking 10 degree winter days, man.

Middle of dead of January, but I just, I wear waders and I just, I don't even, I don't wear, I don't wear neoprene waders. I just, I got a nice, nice pair of Sims waders. And I just layer, a couple of pairs of wool socks. And then that's another reason I another reason I bought the raft.

A lot of the stuff that I fish anyways is drift, drift boat, water float boat. So it's man. Screw the standing in the water. Cause yeah, that was my, I do it, but it does, it gets cold. It sucks. Dude, just crossing. I got the cross [00:31:00] water and some of my spots that bow hunt in, if it's 40 degrees and I'm like just in that water for a little bit, it's like my toes are like freezing.

Oh yeah. So so when you're in your boat you still talk about drift boat. You don't, do you anchor or yep. When you get to your hole. So you can actually just fish alongside your boat or in it, depending on where you're at. No, you can have a, you can have some gloves or like a change of stuff.

Cause I'm just envisioning, like I would be two miles away from something and fricking tip over in the water and be like miserable. Hey, that's, that is always possible. That's all. You always run that risk and it's just one of them things. That's the one thing I haven't done in knock on wood is.

Be in the middle, halfway through my flow and end up in the darn water. Dude, you're bringing up a bad memory for me. So I duck hunt and chase geese when they're in fields, I got permission to hunt, depending on when the corn comes down, but we, I actually leased like a property, I'll shoot, where was it?

It was off 31 North. It was like, is it white Lake? No, I can't remember the name of it. It was North of [00:32:00] Apple Avenue, but anyways, it was up that way. And it was a cool spot. Like it was a big wet area. There was ducks all over the place, so we paid some money. It was really cheap. I want to say we each paid like a hundred bucks and we had it for the duck season or whatever.

So it was great. We thought, and we didn't have a boat, nothing. We all had waiters and we had we had went there before we leased it. And, you could walk around the water. It was like around your knee high, good to go like this. Thing looks, it's awesome looking. So we hunted the one morning and then we just weren't set up that good.

So like all the ducks, we shot maybe a couple, but most of the ducks were like on the other side of this. So me and my buddy were like, dude, what's this sneak over there. There's like all this like cover we'll sneak up on them and we'll hunt in the afternoon over there. We're going and I'm, 240 pounds.

He's 160 and he I'm following him. And we hit the spot and I have the Cabela's, waiters with the bullets in the top. So it's pretty high up in my chest. I do it. I hit a spot and I just started sinking yeah, it was freaking me out. Like I went down, I was like, my buddy's Kevin.

[00:33:00] I was like, dude, Kevin, I'm sinking bad. And he like turns around, looks at me and I'm like going down and I'm trying to walk. And I, every time I take a step, I just keep sinking. I try to turn around, but at that point, I was too committed, so thank goodness he was little enough. I was able to grab his shoulders and push myself down, and I like sunk him.

And then I got myself up and I was able to take a step back, but I was like an inch away from the top of my waders. Went from like waist to thigh to like that. And dude, I was just pull him mud. Huh? Dude, his mud like hit a soft spot. So I, when I pushed him down, he, I had to pull him back out of it.

That was that I was like, dude, I almost killed you. I almost died that I almost killed you. Dude, what a scary, that was, I think that's one of the most scariest moments I've ever had. Oh yeah. Like Kyle Tollen that don't bother me. None, like hearing coyotes rip off or, climbing in a tree, walking around in the dark, like that stuff doesn't really freak me out.

But man, that time when those waders on, I just was like, dude, I'm going to die right here. I don't know why, but Oh, so you don't feel like that mud, man. It's like a suction because you get that on the side of the river. [00:34:00] Sometimes you'll take a step and you'll sink into your knee. It's not as it's not so stinking easy to pull your leg out of that, and then like you said, your way to start filling up with water. Yeah, I was like, I don't, I didn't have a knife on me. So I was like, I couldn't I was going to cut myself out of that. It was just, I just remember that I remember the funny thing was, I think he took a picture. I don't know if we did or not, but the, where the shell holder was on the waiters, there was water up to the brass.

So that's how I was like, Oh my God, I was right there. I was at, I was right there. That's for sure. But yeah, so you got handy. That's cool. So you hit it pretty hard, like all fall then, like this is your thing you can do and have fun. And then now. When you go, so when's your, so you, it sounds like you said that some of your favorite times to do this is when it's really cold out, but if you were like my favorite time winter, that was my question.

Winter is your favorite. Yup. And I don't know for me, it's a little bit, cause steelhead and just trout in general, they can sit in some, so many different, they send so many different types [00:35:00] of water in my, in my experience some people. Say different. But to me, they could be sitting behind a rock.

They could be sitting under a log jam. They could be sitting in literally just a little rapid. There's just so many different things. Whereas in the winter time, the water is real cold. So they're sitting more in the deeper, slower moving water somewhere. It's easier for them to eat.

And that's the thing too, is like with the, in my opinion, with winter fishing, it can be harder because. They're not as active, if that makes sense. Not as aggressive. They're not going to exert as much at where they can, where it's like a fall fish, they're coming up. They it's warm water, 50 degrees outside.

That, they got all the energy in the world. Whereas in the winter time, like I said, it's cold. So they don't want to use up burnt. They want to burn as little energy as possible. I guess you could say that's the same as like late season deer hunting, like you're either the deer, you could have deer all over your property from, September to late November.

And then once we get all the snow and the cold weather hits they're not there anymore because they've moved to a thermal [00:36:00] cover where the food is so if you don't know, like that, you're at the mercy of your property to that point, if you're a private land hunter, but if you're going public land hunting, it's same thing.

You may, you might not find them, but if you find the deer. I've seen some of the most, my best deer sightings have happened in like December because you're just on the right spot, and and it depends on the year, same thing with you talking about how cold it ends up getting, but that kind of makes sense.

So so you're probably like, if I know, if I put the work in, I can find where these pockets are. I'm going to have real good fishing opposed to when they're more active and chaos and going around, you can run into a little bit easier. So you have to just go and find them.

Exactly. And that's like what this was, every, pretty much every river in the state has been fairly low. We haven't got, we haven't had a lot of rain this year. And so I know there's some rivers that aren't fishing the greatest, but I've got a buddy that was just up on a river. A pretty famous river that's been just slow and he frickin he hiked in and what'd he say four or five miles [00:37:00] was started on public land ended up getting into the water because he got into private and was fishing in the water and he said he hit was like two hours left before you know the sun came down he just found a little pocket and was like oh this looks like there could be you know fishing at hook 13 fish in two hours so it's just one of them things yeah it could turn out like that man you could fish all day And not hook anything.

And it could be the last hole or the last, little rock or, log jam. And you could throw in there and it could be loaded and they could all just be munching. That's just I'm getting fired up. Just hearing that, like that's, what's fun about it. Go find it, go do it.

And you can be rewarded for that. When you hook a, when you hook a steelhead, I'm telling you there's it's nothing, it's not like fighting any, even a salmon steelhead fight. Harder than salmon, in my opinion. Salmon are just huge. Salmon are just big fish. Steelhead are, they're acrobatic. They're fast.

They're, in my opinion, one of the pound for pound hardest fighting [00:38:00] fish. Freshwater fish. They're saltwater fish, technically. Yeah. Say they're saltwater. Jeez. That's so cool. All right. I got to ask you a question. I'm looking on your Instagram right now. Yeah. Blast fish. You posted on there. When was this?

Oh, I'm back. Where was it? Right here. When was the last fish you posted on there or where did you post the last fish you caught? Downtown Grand Rapids. Yeah. That's what my question was the concrete jungle you label. Oh yeah. That. Okay. That was what I wanted to bring up because I think a lot of people who, yeah, a lot of people know.

About that spot because it's right off the highway. Everyone knows. So that was there. So you do fish there. That was because I have another buddy that, that fishes that too. And he catches fish. So why in the world is that spot so good? Like, why is there fish there? Why? I don't get it.

Like why is it such a hot spot? They can't really jump the dam. Okay. So they gotta all work through that ladder there. And there could be I'm not sure of the numbers. It [00:39:00] seems like hundreds of thousands of fish down there at times, man. I've been down there 20 fricking boats.

And everybody's hooking 20, 30 fish, everybody boats, people on the bank. Yeah. I've been down there 20 boats and nobody's hooking anything. Okay. It's just one of them things, they and again, it all depends on weather, water. Water temperature, and so how often will you like, so a spot like that, do you have a network of buddies and it's Hey, they're here.

Get over here. Let's fish. Okay. I usually do. Yeah. I've got my buddy Dave Thomas. He's on the line guide service. He's down, he's pretty much down there every day. He pretty much runs, I would say 99 percent of his trips are. Right there at sixth street. And then, I've got buddies that are just, they work second shift or third shift, so they fish it in the morning and then they'll let you know, Oh, Hey, we hooked 13 fish, get over there.

Yeah. That'll do, that's like a whole different type of fishing because it's a whole different jungle, like a whole different type of fishing, [00:40:00] but it's still fun because I guess the expectations are high, right? Cause you're like, if you, if. If it was like, say fishing, like the PM at times or like a more scenic river where you're going to be there all day and you're only going to hook five fish, I'd never fish there.

Yeah. I would never fish there. There's something cool about being in, in the city and catching these fricking crazy fish. But at the same time, it is fricking downtown Grand Rapids. Yeah. And it sucks. It takes a little bit of the, yes, exactly. But like I said, the fish are there and I like catching the fish.

Okay. So the, so that, that, okay. The fish ladder. I knew about that. So just the reason why it's good is because they can stockpile the fish back up in there. And it's really wide. It's really wide too. There's a lot of space there for the fish to be in. So I think it gives an opportunity for like deep pockets too.

Yes. That was my pockets. Okay. Have you ever seen a crazy thing happen with people on that dam? Like boat get tipped or pulled in? I've never personally seen [00:41:00] it, but I've seen a video like just within the last couple of years of that happening. Yeah. I saw that too. And I was like, what in the world is going on?

Then I see people out there doing it. I'm like, there's no way I'd want to be near that. I personally don't get in that river if it's over 3, 200. On the flow chart. But it's, it was that last Wednesday we were down there. Was that like 4, 200 and there was freaking people in that thing.

It's just one of, it's there's so many variables when you're walking in the river and there's rocks, there could be some moss on a rock. Okay. Yeah. You've stepped on this rock a hundred times. Now there's a slippery layer of moss over top of it, or, oh, this guy snapped off a hundred foot of braid.

And it's running across the river, stuck in, and there's just too many variables. And that's what one of them rivers to, that's not a river you want to play with. It's big, it's fast. If you go down, anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, I'm sure you can find it on YouTube, but that's just Oh, I don't even, it was so scary.

I was like, Oh yeah, I [00:42:00] believe they got out of that. I see it a couple of times. I see it a few times circulating on Facebook every year, but it's one of them things, man, just to remind you that it is dangerous. It's not something to take lightly, no, be careful. I, there's guys down there.

I see guys all the time wading into the dam and hooking fish, fighting fish, land them, and they do it all the time. Yeah, I think it's no big deal. And I just, I like to stay on the wall. I got a drop net. That was okay. That was my next thing I wanted to go into. You have a net you I've seen guys use those nets or pictures.

They're hard to use by yourself. Yeah. That was my next thing. How do you do that? You need a buddy to do that. It's a lot. Can you do it yourself? You can do it by yourself. It's a lot easier with a buddy. And a lot of times too, you like, people get this thing in their mind because they see, a lot of people on Facebook are just.

Honestly, just dicks, if you're down there and you don't, you need help netting a fish, people are going to help you net your darn fish. Gotcha. But if you're down there by yourself, a little bit tougher. I usually, I should have known to just tie it around, you can tie it around [00:43:00] the railing there, but I'm an idiot and I like to hold it in my freaking teeth and just lower it down.

It's a pain in the ass. Yeah, you just need some video and you're doing that. Yeah that's what I think is, that was the thing is I had a buddy down there and I was just telling him, was it Sunday we were out, was out there on a boat Sunday and he had some clients and I was like, dude, the least you could have done is fricking motored over and netted that fish for me.

Just watch me look like, yeah, 20 foot fricking rope, dropping it down, that's a great, so I'm assuming that I wanted to bring it up was like if I were like, I'm going to go fish that would be one of the spots I'd be like, Hey, I know there's fish here. Cause people fish at all times. So I'm sure there's a lot of beginners and newbies fish there.

So I wanted to, you've been doing this for four years. Like you said, granted, there's guys who've done it much longer, but you've gone hard for four years. So I feel like you have quite a, some good experience and you're relatively, you remember what it was like to not have experience.

What would you say for like a [00:44:00] beginner guy? Would you recommend them going to a place like that where they're, the fish can be stocked up, or would you recommend them trying to like, go to a more or less busy place or what, what kind of words of wisdom would you give a new guy?

I'm finding the spot. It, it just depends, man. If you're staying out of the downtown grand Rapids, there's places you don't have to get in the water and you can catch fish. So for me, downtown is, it's downtown is the simplest way to catch a fish half ounce weight. 15 gram bobber and a beat.

So I send everybody that's new to it downtown, but there's other places, if you're not into the crowds. There's plenty of other rivers and it's all just, there, again, there's different ways that you can fish these things, and so some rivers are more technical.

So it's just, yeah, the grand downtown grand Rapids is the, and maybe elegant damn crow and damn two are all ways where you can run a more of a simple setup and slam fish. Like I said, downtown, grand [00:45:00] Rapids, it's. I'll even run high, high vis bright green line, down to a, just a half ounce weight.

What are they called inline weights? It's got the swivel, the weighted swivels, a three foot leader with two beads on it, and then that's it. That's real, real easy. And then that kind of gives a newbie or like I'm talking about myself here, if I go do that, I can, understand how to use the pole or how to set hooks, like all the basic things I can get worked out.

And. I can watch a lot of guys do it. It's like I learned from watching. So I can be like, Hey, that dude knows what he's doing. What the heck are you doing? And I can just sit back and watch because that's how I learned a lot of things I've learned is either watching through videos or watching, watching guys shoot, like going to an archery shop and watching a dude pick up any bow on the shelf.

He works there. He can shoot any bow. Great. So it's stare at that dude and watch what he does. It's Oh, he grips a bow like this every time. Oh, it doesn't matter what draw length or what brace height or what axle of the dude shooting money, so it's so I, that's how I like it.

So for me, I'm always like, man, I could just go there and. Even [00:46:00] if I didn't even really cast or try to catch fish, I could just watch guys do it. You can probably pick up so many things and do that. Or be the guy that, is like standing by close and Hey, you want me to hold your, hold this while you drop this 20 foot net down there.

I guess at high risk, high reward, the Duke of you're pissed at you, or you could be a savior, that is the thing with it, man. And then I don't know why some people are just. Frickin dicks, arrogance is a frickin thing that, and it's terrible with steelhead fishermen.

Oh yeah. All of them. Not all of them, obviously. But there is a handful. I think it, it doesn't matter. There's any kind of competitive nature. For anything guys are, I can just think of people in my head for hunting, and fishing and, any kind of sports, they just, we all chasing this high or whatever you want to call it, and I get a kick out of, I can get that same high watching my good buddies, smoke a rabbit that's running by.

Or I can, and I still enjoy it, but some people only get that feeling if they're the one doing it, so I think that's and that's, [00:47:00] and that could just be the journey they're in or how they're raised. There's so many variables, but when you find a group of someone who gets it, there's definitely a big difference.

For me, I fricking, I went. When I, the first year that I did it, I, man, I went such a long time, never even hooking them. Fishing with my buddy Conrad, he's hooking them left and right. And I'm having a great fricking time just netting these things, so it's for me, I like watching people catch them just as much as I like catching.

I like looking at the darn fish. It's just they're just so darn pretty. They are, they're beautiful fish. All right. So what was your best day fishing this year? Let's say like from, I guess this fishing season. So when that would start, I guess this fall, I should say. Fall, winter. Best day I've had, uh, landed fish I've put was 10 in the boat.

Nice. So that would have been second or third week of October. I think it was. And then, we've had, I've had a couple of days with some buddies where we've hooked. 30. That's a good day. No, yeah, [00:48:00] that's a that's three people. 30 fish, what? Three day. Okay. So I hear this okay, so you land in 10 fish, that's a great, that was your best day.

Oh. Which seems to me like a lot. Oh, day. That's one of the days. That's one of the best days I've ever had in my life. And that was this year. So we, yeah, sweet. So what is like the average? So if you were to say, if I hook 10 fish, how many do you land on the average, okay, really, I would say for me personally, it depends. I would say probably one out of, I would say probably one out of every five for me. Yeah, it seems but I have streaks where I hope dude, I never knew that in a row. I never knew that about river fishing. I was like, I hear you guys talking about, I was like, what do you.

What I don't understand 'cause I hook some and they're like excited and I was like, I, okay, what? Why are you hooking them? Oh yeah. Then I realized that these fish are not like a blue gill or a bass where you can motor 'em to the boat. You can pull them through weeds pretty easy. These things are rocks or use.[00:49:00]

I use like a size six or a size four hook. You're, I use relatively, small hooks comparative to, what for bat for bass. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Dude, I got, when I do weedless, this hook is fricking giant and when I get them, it's is engaged, and I can depend on what I'm using for a pole.

You can just drag them across top of the water if you want, learning all this stuff. And just from hearing you guys talk about it and like the finesse that it takes, or, the, you want maybe, I'm assuming you maybe like to use a small hook so it doesn't like the fish can't see it as easily.

I think so. I honestly, I don't know if there's any truth to that, but yeah, like I use black split shot, little black, I use black hooks, anything. I don't like anything that can create like a glare. You guys are like reloaders. Guys who reload bullets. You guys are all like that with your fishing set up.

It's funny. . And everybody's, everybody does. Everybody does it differently. Yeah. Some of the, some guys that I fish with, tons of split shots on their leaders and I'm like, what in the hell are [00:50:00] you doing? But they're catching a ton of fish, . It's just how you know. It's how it goes. If you can, if you know how to read a water and you can if figure out if you were the fish, where are you going to be sitting? Where's the best spot for you to be putting out the least amount of energy to get about, the most food intake or whatever. And the guys that, that can do that are usually your guys that are going to go anywhere and catch fish.

And that's just how it is. And you can tell that thing is someone will hit me up. Oh, Hey, what are you doing? And this and that, and I'm like, look, man. Where are you fishing? Oh, we're fishing this area. Oh, I'm fishing the same area. And you're telling me you didn't hook any fish. We hooked, me and a buddy went out and hooked 10.

It's because they're not properly reading the water. So many people walk by stuff that holds steelhead all the time. And even me, we fished, I fished with a buddy, would have been two Saturdays ago. In this little tiny pocket, I'm talking maybe five foot long. Three foot wide, just, it was all gravel and just a dark hole.

He's [00:51:00] Oh, we should throw in there real quick. I'm like, dude, let's just float by it. We got a lot of ground to cover. He says, dude, throw that freaking beat in there. Throw the beat in there. Doesn't even go a foot. Bobby drains, set the hook, big old field head. Oh, man. That's the same thing with whitetail, honey.

Think about when you're hunting in the woods and you also look over in 60 yards away, you catch like a flash of a deer and you're like, Oh my gosh, you put your binos up. You're like, okay, that's, that was a little buck. Okay. How many times has a big buck went by and you had no idea or you can only, so that's what is like you said earlier, you got to fish a spot where the fish are.

And if they're not there, you're not catching them. And the same thing, like with hunting, you got to find the spots where deer, you don't put yourself in a good percentage, good, high percentage opportunity to get within bow range or within rifle range of a deer. Absolutely. When I rabbit hunt too, like I could go spend, I could walk six miles.

In some woods or close to where I rabbit hunt, if I don't go that [00:52:00] 400 yards farther, I won't see a rabbit, like I can walk and walk and never kick up a rabbit dogs, never circle rabbit. We'd be like, dude, we, there's no rabbits in this area, but we could have missed it by 400 yards. You can miss it by 200 yards.

And then there's 10 rabbits in that, 600 yard by 200 yard spot. That's like, when guys say this, like the new beginners, like you have to. It takes time to learn these things. Oh, you have to put your seat time. And yes, you have to find these little pockets. You have to be like, yeah, you're excited.

Like at first you're like, Oh my gosh I shot something or, Oh my goodness. My buddy said, cast right here. And I caught a fish, like you don't know any of this stuff, but as you continue to do it, you got to progress and I understand why. Okay. Why, Hey dude, why did you want me to cast them?

Like, why did you think that was a good spot? Yeah, it's gravel. There's a nice little dark hole. Like why wouldn't a fish be there? So now it's Oh. In the memory bank next time I see something like that, do the same thing. So that's the thing. It's hard to teach newbies. Like you have to put in the time.

Someone like you has put in a lot of time in the last few years. So I'm sure [00:53:00] the same thing, like every fall, I, people reach out to me. Hey, how's the, Oh man, you're seeing deer. I'm not seeing nothing. Or, Oh, can I come shoot some deer on your property? It's yeah like that's the kind of thing that happens to the deer off the property.

Yeah. Always have that. And then there are sometimes like, I have no problem, like certain circumstances yeah, come help me, let's go, let's try to do something, but guess what? I don't always bring them to the, my best spot, I try to bring them, I try to bring them to a spot that's Hey, here's like a very basic, like one on one, this is a good, this could be a really good sit because of X, Y, and Z we can get in there easy.

Who cares if we're a little loud, all these things and, there's a good chance that doe is going to probably come out. Let's shoot a doe, and that's the same thing with fishing. Like I'm assuming like you guys would be like, Hey, oh yeah, come fishing with me. Let's kinda I'll break this down for you as like simple terms or whatever.

It may be oh hundred percent. And you get the basics, but you have to put the time in to hundred percent to be good at it or to have more success. And that doesn't mean you're gonna have, there's gonna be years you're gonna get kicked in the balls. Oh yeah. Like no matter what, but it, you just keep putting stuff in the [00:54:00] memory bank.

I think LA last year, I think I caught maybe 12 steelhead through October and November. And you got 10 at one time this year. I know. And that crazy, man, what's crazy is I just floated the white a couple weeks ago, and I had been talking it up. I'm like, Oh, it's fishing. Good. It's fishing.

Good. It's fishing. Good. It's fishing. Good. Get my buddy to dry, almost two hours away, drives out, float that sucker hook one freaking fish. One fish all day land is the best. Oh, that's why we love it the whole time, man. We're flowing down and we're hitting these holes and we're hitting this whole and we hook enough and hook enough.

And I'm like, dude, I'm apologizing the whole way down the flow and he's all, I don't care. I'm was going to, fish anyways, and this and that, and it's just one of them things, man. And they can, and it can flip and not even 12 hours. They can, you can be hitting them all day, one day and.

You can float the exact same section of river. The next could [00:55:00] be gone. It's and that's you don't see that on Instagram or Facebook or whatever, you don't see that. And that's, I know I'm not, I'm, I know we're preaching to the choir, to guys who are serious about whatever aspect of outdoors are and they get it.

But I know a lot of people listen, like I listen to podcasts to learn stuff. And there's a lot of things I didn't know when I started listening to it. So I love having these conversations because. Yeah, just because you see, like right now, if you're to scroll through Facebook, all is giant bucks getting, like, it's all you're only seeing the big ones.

You're not seeing the, quite a few little ones are still getting shot or all the people who, have sat probably since opening day of gun season, and they took their week vacation and they didn't see a deer, you don't see that. And, that's just the way life is now. And I remember sitting so many hours and just being like, never in the game so I've gotten so much seat time and, chasing waterfowl, chasing rabbits, chasing squirrels, chasing white tails that like nothing's came of it.

And then, I've, I don't ice fish because I [00:56:00] failed so bad when I was a kid trying to ice fish that it ruined it for me, because when I would go ice fishing with my grandpa. He would just hammer the fish, like actually hammer. He'd be like, yeah, do this. And I would do it. I'm just like, yeah, whipping fish up.

This is great. I'm going to try to do it myself. Can't catch a fricking fish because I was drilling a hole in the middle of a lake. That was 60 feet deep trying to jig at 10 foot deep. Like I did, I'm like, I'm just not knowing. So like anytime I can give someone the opportunity to be like, Hey, like it takes time, this is something that you guys got a lot of seat time in.

You got to build on it. You'll have. Good years. You'll have good days. You'll have just terrible. That's what makes it so much fun when you do connect. So a hundred percent, that's the thing too, is the, I think the biggest thing that the reason I think I'm so in, so enthused with the fishing is, the fish are under the water.

So no matter what, I'm not going to see him. So for me, it's oh, okay. Maybe, they're still, they're down there. I'll be back here tomorrow. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's a good point. When you're sitting and you're waiting and you can usually see him, depending on, for me, I'm sitting [00:57:00] in a cornfield most of the time, or on the edge of the cornfield, I can see him coming from miles away.

The fricking fish, you'd come around a bend, see nothing, drop a beat in, boom, fish. Dude, that's a great point because you're always in the game. You feel like. Like you said, you're that like deer, you can be so discouraged. So fast with like deer hunting, or dude, I've been like, Oh my gosh, guys, we all need to goose hunt this field.

Like tomorrow, because there was 200 of them there last night. The anticipation level is at max capacity. And then by an hour in a daylight, there's not a thing flying. You're like, Oh, this sucks. Like they're not here. Now they're like, Oh, let's pack up. And then you start backing up because you're discouraged because you don't give it a good opportunity.

Then that's when they all come, like stupid things like that. I've got a buddy. He's, I don't know how he does it, but he's real fricking good at chasing pods of fish around. He, he's a guide, so he's on the water vast majority of the time. And he, but he doesn't fish, he's all over.

He fishes this river, but for whatever fricking [00:58:00] reason, man, he found he's able to, once he finds a pot of fish, he's able to, it seems to me, and I could be completely wrong. Seems to me like he's able to follow that pot of fish around always catching, five, six, seven fish.

They're just, dude, guys are just good. Oh, dude that's a nice level. He's catching five, six, seven fish in half a day float by himself. And it's what in the hell are you doing? I'm the same freaking bodies of water that I'm fishing. Yeah, you're doing it. And it's man, what the heck? You got something to strive for, yeah, I know. All I think we might slow this down, wrap it up. It's getting there, but I do, this is a great conversation. And I do look forward to more, but I, this is how I want to send you off on this to end this. I hope tomorrow you get to go fishing and you're going to hook 10 fish and you're going to land three.

And you're going to be like, thanks, Nate. That's what's going to happen. I am going fishing tomorrow. So I'll definitely keep you up. Keep me up to date on that. But yeah, I look forward to getting you on again too, because like I was saying, like this whole fishing thing, I'm just like scratching the surface of stuff.

[00:59:00] There's so much more detail we can go into it, but I find it very intriguing that people will do this instead of bow hunting or white tail hunting. But here you talk about it. You got the same, you got the same passion for this that I do for white tail. So to me, it makes sense. I guess I can relate because.

You're tore up with it. And you're waking up early, you're doing all these things and grinding in the winter time. Like you, you love it. But no, I yeah, guys, thanks for listening to this episode of mission wild. And thank you, Shane, for doing this. And hopefully some people yeah, don't, see the title of this fishing in November is probably what it's going to be and give it a good listen.

I gotta, take a break from whitetails a little bit. This conversation blew by and hopefully you guys enjoy it. Hey, thank you, Shane. I appreciate it, man. Yeah, I appreciate it. I have a good one, brother.[01:00:00]

Hey guys. I just wanted to hop on the end of this episode, just to do a quick little reminder. That the Michigan wilds shop, there's a 10 percent off code that you can use until the end of this month. So once this podcast drops, there'll only be a couple of days left for that. But if you go to michigan wild dot holler commerce.

dot com. You can find the shop. It's also in the profile page of the Instagram page, Michigan wild pod. So yeah, if you guys want to go check that that website out before you lose out on that 10 percent off, I know that, there's a lot of little gifts you can get maybe for, Christmas presents, that kind of thing.

There's a whole wide range of. All things outdoors. I know this is like a fishing podcast, but like I, I was breezing through some of the fishing and a tackle and [01:01:00] that kind of stuff. And granted I don't have a good say on what good stuff is fishing related because I'm just not really in that world.

I rock an ugly stick. That's pretty much all we use. And there's ugly sticks on there and there's a whole bunch of different brands. There's, there's a lot of options for that. There's options for, lures and tackle and all that kind of stuff too. But so to go along with this episode, there are a lot of fishing things on there.

But, for like me, I have a couple things that I on the main homepage that I just, what I found, on that website, from binoculars, there's Vortex stuff on there, there's, Phantom Saddle from Tethered, that's a saddle I've been, shoot, I've been using that saddle for, this is either my third, either third or fourth season I've used that Phantom Saddle, I think third season and then the, You know the brighter platforms on there.

That's the same platform. I've used from day one. That's the first platform I bought five years ago when I started saddle hunting That's on there and a couple of other accessories too that I like to use for all my you know Hangouts being mobile and but then there's like simple things like [01:02:00] the 90s S binders, those are kind of things that I use to hang, stuff off my saddle.

There's the gear ties. Dude, I use a gear tie. That's all I use to get my sticks up a tree. I just use a gear tie on the side of my saddle. Works great. And then there's some, there's like muck boots. And then I think a couple other things trying to go off the top of my head. Oh, yeah, I do have a, there's like a simple outdoor edge knife.

Replace, replaceable blades. Dude, that's a great Christmas present. I everyday carry that knife and it works great for just everyday carry stuff. It works great for skinning deer. It works great for, clean rabbits, doing all that kind of stuff. Just have that knife on me all the time.

It's not necessarily a knife that I, have in my pack to gut deer, but I guarantee you it can be used for that also so it's a very versatile knife you know you get a pack of blades and it's super easy to replace so yeah if you guys don't mind give that shop a look you know when you're trying to find maybe gifts for yourself for Christmas or you know for family members that kind of thing and there's just tons of stuff I mean there's archery stuff there's decoys there's footwear there's trail cameras there's calls there's [01:03:00] camping stuff.

Ground blinds, there's GPS things. You can get some backpacks and all that kind of stuff. So it's a great website with lots of things. You can maybe give a look and take advantage of that 10 off code. It's just, it's literally 10 off one, zero OFF, and you can use that and get saved 10%, but thanks for listening guys.

Thanks for supporting the show.

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