I have a special guest for you today, Tom and Dara from Ireland on the Fly. Welcome to the show, guys.

Hey, Tommy, thanks for having us.

Hey, Tommy, good to talk to you.

Ireland on the Fly is obviously a podcast. And everyone who is listening to this podcast should pause right now and go on the app that you're using to listen to this podcast and find Ireland on the Fly and subscribe and then you can come back to this podcast. And so once you've done that, Ireland on the Fly is a podcast. But there's so much more than just the podcast. Could you give us a lay down? What is that you're doing?

Well, I suppose I might take it up, Tom, just by way of background. I suppose I started it probably maybe four years ago, maybe. I think I might have been at this stage back in the midst of time. I live in Tipperary, south of Ireland, near Cork. I'm a dove, originally from the accent. And when we moved out to Tipperary, I started fly fishing. River shores near me. I used to fish as a kid course fishing lakes and canals and stuff. And I always wanted to take up fly fishing. The shore so close to me, it was the river shore or there was the golf course and I had plenty of friends who played golf. So I just figured I'll do fly fishing. I figured that'd be a better, better waste of my time. I knew I couldn't do both. I work in the media. I've been a radio producer. I was a radio producer since 2001. I did my very first podcast back in 2007, would you believe, and we couldn't even call it a podcast. We did it with Leinster Rugby. We had to call it Leinster Rugby Radio because people back then wouldn't even know what a podcast was. And it was probably only, I suppose I've been working on podcasts since then and it wasn't really until about 2016 that podcast I think started really taking off. And as I said, I was fly fishing and it was, became a. Started as a passion project really. I was fascinated first and foremost by, and the subtitle of our podcast is the people and Places of Fly Fishing in Ireland. And for me, you know, I'm not a very experienced angler. Well, especially when I was starting, you know, I, you know, I'm not, I'm not like Tom where I grew up in the water and I'm immersed in the life of fly fishing. And I was fascinated actually a lot by the people and the culture and the history to do with fly fishing because there's Such a rich fly fishing history in Ireland. And so if I'd be fishing around Ireland in any places, I'd always be like, what's that church rune over there? Or what's, you know, why is the. Why is there such and such a word for, you know, trout in the Irish or something like that? So I was always really fascinated in the culture and the history, especially the 1800s. When you start delving into it and you realize the kind of influence Irish people had on fly fishing and the kind of ripple effect of that influence around the world. So started that podcast was like anything when you're. I don't know about you, Tommy, but I find when I was doing it on my own, it becomes difficult, you know, to try and kind of keep doing it week in, week out and be interesting to get your insights on it. And I knew Tom from fishing, from a documentary I did on mayfly season and Carb and Tommy, you can never shut him up. He's been very quiet at the moment because I. Because I'm a bit of a rev gift of the gab as well. And I always got on with Tom and I approached Tom, what was it Tom, about two years ago? Was it three years ago?

Two and a half years ago now.

I think two and a half. And I said, tom, would you be interested in coming on board? And because Tom, Tom's an international angler, he's the proper fly fishing angler here. You know, I'm just the kind of enthusiastic amateur. Tom is the professional, the guide. And I like to think it works. I don't know what Tom says. We're still doing it. We even fish together. We haven't fallen out yet.

Oh, that works too.

So that's. Yeah, so that's by way of it. And you know, I think most importantly, Tommy, we enjoy it. You know, there's loads of it. I remember and Tom will tell this story is, you know, we come up with the ideas together with so many. We've so many ideas or bouncing ideas off each other, but we enjoy doing it. I think that's the most important thing.

And you covered a lot of most of it there, Dar. Yeah. So I came on because my background has nothing to do with podcasts, anything like that journalism or whatever. Tommy, my. I'm. I'm a full time guide here on lock carbon lock mask. I've been fishing since I was near to a duck. My dad fished, but my grandparents fished when I wasn't guiding in my, my lifetime so far, I actually worked in the angling trade And I worked for fly fishing company Hardy and Graze for seven years. I was their Irish, Irish sales manager. So basically all I've known in my life has been fly fishing, particularly since I've been working. So yeah, and just Dara approached me and I had no clue about it whatsoever. And I wasn't. We. I listened to a couple but I think just to cut to it, yeah, it works. What we do just works together. I mean, you know, Daryl tell you, you know that he said to me first off, and I now know to be true, we need to be regular. He says we need to do it every week. And I went, not a notion. I can't see myself doing that. And. But I do know because I understand a bit now after two and a half years, yeah, you do need it to be regular. But the reason I'm regular is as Dara says, love doing it. Absolutely love doing it. And it's very true what Dara says there, you know. The subtitle as such is the people and places we got to talk to so many different and such a varied amount of people. I'm like, you know, I can go on from, you know, from guys with some really interesting views about, you know, history to some really fascinating insight scientific wise to guys that, you know, just crack me up. We're just talking there earlier on there's guys that, you know, I, when I'm chatting to them, they just crack me up. And you know, it's been so varied and there's a very rich history of fly fishing all right in Ireland. And, but also, not only is the, it's so varied and that's the bit that gets me going and like we were talking there now today about, you know, what we have to do now for the next couple of guests we're doing now and this is great and you know, Darren saying, I got that, that'll be brilliant. And I actually can't wait to talk to some of these guys sometimes I really can't. And I'd like to think it comes across that when we're talking to guys and maybe you know that yourself, Tommy, I think we're certain there earlier on that you get to talk to these people. It's fantastic. It really is. And you know, also as well, I know sometimes we have questions worked out beforehand and it goes way off the script because you know the guy will tell you something and you go, wow, that, that is so amazing. I want to find out more about that. And you know, all the scripted questions are out the window and you know, you're down, you're down a rabbit hole. And it's fascinating. But yeah, that's, that's, yeah, that's, that's my side of it.

I agree totally. And sometimes guests are coming like, oh, do you have a questions for me? And I said like, hey, I can send you bullet points, but there's like no guarantee. We just not good after second one goes somewhere else. And guys, I gotta ask you, I gotta ask you a question. You're, you're talking about fly fishing. And what is the proportion of talking about technical aspects of fly fishing or fishing on a certain body of water and how big of a portion is talking about general environmental issues and the state of the environment? Because obviously again, before we hit the record on this short interview, we talked about this aspect of things. So could you tell us a little bit like how these two topics are meshing in your podcast?

Well, I think we like to get the balance, is what I'd say, Tommy. So we don't, you know, in our head when we're looking at the Excel sheet and planning out the episodes we want to do, always a mix, say in the next six weeks, you'd always try and get a mix of kind of a fishery focus, a kind of an angular interview. So that's kind of more human interest. Fly tire as well. Also maybe a bit of technical expertise, insights, tips, that kind of stuff. And then also within that, then there is the environmental and kind of news worthy type. So what we always try and do is we try and especially make it if it's very topical. Because what I find is that if it's in the news, if people are reading about it, people are aware of it, it's a good way to kind of bring it back to kind of go, listen, guys, I know you've probably seen this, but let's find out a bit more. A good example was recently the Hillary harbor salmon escapees, the farm salmon escapees there. So we followed that up a week later, like someone done, we do an intro to every episode, kind of talk about the guests and what's been happening, what's the fishing week been like between us. And that week we mentioned that story, you know, we said, guys, in case you're aware of this or, you know, if you want a bit more information, just so you know, farm salmon escape from killery consequences of this. So then a week later we followed it up with Billy Smith, who is the founder and spokesperson for Galway Bay against Salmon Cages. So he was telling us a bit more about the work that he does in terms of against the Farm Sam. And he brought us back to the background about the campaigning, how the organization was set up. So it gave us an opportunity for about 45 minutes to actually get into the topic. So we find the environmental stuff works really well when you can kind of make it topical and newsworthy like that. And that's the best way to do it. So it's just trying to get the balance all the time because, you know, like, you know your outdoors podcast, tell me, you know, there's so many areas to it. I know we're, I know we're a niche. People think, oh, you're just fly fishing. We're a niche within fishing. But even within fly fishing, you know, there's the fly tying, there's salmon, there's branch out, there's sea trout, there's locks, there's rivers, there's salt water, you know, so there's so many different branches. And I remember one of the first things Tom said when I was saying to Tom about doing weekly Tom's like, how are we going to do an episode every week? Surely we're going to run out of ideas. But the thing is, once you're in that space of thinking of ideas, you'll never run out of them, I find.

Yeah. And the other thing I'd say there with when you just mentioned about them, you know, environmental, unfortunately, they tend to be as they're topical. They tend to be when something bad has happened. You know, for example, you know, what lock, nay hit them. Hit the, you know, hit the headlines. Of course, then. So, yeah, also as well covered a fish kill as well and the style. So unfortunately, as I said, it tends to be when there's bad news about. Well, you know, it goes well beyond, obviously, as Dara said, that goes well beyond the fly fishing aspect of us because that concerns a lot more people than just us fly fishermen. But probably, maybe we should look at maybe doing a couple of good news stories on that side. Dara. Just thinking over there, but, you know, just maybe.

Yeah, exactly.

And this is the thing is organic, of course, because, you know, you suddenly think, well, yeah, why not try and offset it with something good?

The other couple things I would say on the time is, you know, we like to say, as anglers were custodians of the rivers and lakes. Okay. So that's, I think, a really important point to hit home for people especially who aren't anglers and, you know, might have a different opinion of it. We're the ones out in the rivers. We're the ones out in the lakes, out in the coast, you know, and it's in our interest that the environment is kept well and it's looked after. So to that extent where the eyes and ears of what's going on in many respects and a lot of these places where we fish, there's not many people either. So, you know, if anybody's going to get up that no good, you know, they're going to go to these isolated kind of areas that they're going to try and affect the fish stocks or whatever, poaching or whatever they're doing generally to be an angler around to keep an eye on it. So I think that's an important point to make. There's a really interesting point I think as well as, and you know, with 20 odd years experience in the media and this goes right back, I used to work in current affairs and news journalism and live radio and it's changing, but not that much, unfortunately. And I don't know about you, Tommy, but I find environmental issues do not hit home with people in the general sense. And like I said, we first started 20 years ago covering climate change and current affairs. We knew it was a complete turn off for people. You could now. And even when we do environmental issues, it's a case of how can we do it slightly differently. And Tom, like you said, it's probably a good idea. Maybe we need to look at it kind of from a good news angle as well is a how do you stop kind of repeating yourself? Because a lot of times these are like fish kills, farm salmon escapes. How do you know you're banging your head off the wall kind of saying the same thing. How can you come up with a new message that people will take on board? But also with environmental issues, unfortunately, the reality is with fly fishing, people just want to go tell me where I can catch fish and how I can catch them. So you kind of have to take that balance right where you kind of go, we're going to do these, those episodes, but we're also going to do a couple of issues over here that they mightn't be big numbers, they might not be the massive numbers of popularity that we're hoping for, but we think they're right in doing them because we have to raise awareness to that. So it's trying to get that balance right and hopefully eventually people will go, do you know what? I like the way you're doing that environmental stuff as well. But I think we have to kind of keep not hammering home the message but trying to find out new ways to do it as well.

And you're listen, I totally agree. Environmental stuff is incredibly important and kind of like I keep hammering and actually that's how I found your podcast. Looking for information about problems with the fisheries and the locks. But at the same time, yeah, we are I guess in a bad need of some good news as well. Folks. Listen, tell us how to get into your world, how it's best way to interact with everything that you do other than subscribe to your podcast. What else do you do and what people can subscribe to your newsletter or whatever you have?

Yeah, I suppose. Look, we're on Spotify, we're on Apple. IrelandFly.com is the website. We have a newsletter so that goes out every time there's a new episode. Inland Fisheries Ireland have a weekly newsletter that goes out giving you kind of fishing news and reports. And again, any new episodes will be there. The newsletter is probably the best way like I said, because we'll reach out via email every time there's a new episode. And yeah, keep an eye out for us. Give it a shot. If you're into fishing, fly fishing, environmental bit of everything, flight time, you never know, you might get interested in the sport itself and pick up a fly rod.