Intro: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly.

Intro: On this episode, friend and author Steve Ramirez returns to the podcast.

Intro: We have a great conversation about lessons from the river, and Steve updates

Intro: us on his latest book, Casting Homeward. I think you're really going to enjoy it.

Intro: But before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items.

Intro: If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave

Intro: us a rating review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out.

Intro: And I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing 4th of July with family and friends.

Intro: I want to thank all of our listeners for their patience as we took last week

Intro: off to attend the Outdoor Writers Association of America's Field Fest in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Intro: It was great to spend time with colleagues and get more content for the show.

Intro: And we will be in Orlando later this week for ICAST if you will be too hit us

Intro: up on social media if you want to connect it's always great to meet listeners on the road,

Intro: and we recently released an interview only show The Long Haul with the Articulate

Intro: Fly so if you prefer to listen to the Articulate Fly without the fishing reports,

Intro: just search The Long Haul in your favorite podcatcher now on to the interview.

Marvin: Well Steve welcome back to the Articulate Fly lie.

Steve: It is truly my pleasure. You know that. And thank you for inviting me.

Marvin: Oh, gosh, I love our conversations. You know, folks, it's kind of funny.

Marvin: We were talking before we started recording, and it's been almost two years

Marvin: since Steve was on the last time.

Marvin: And there's been a little bit of water under the bridge.

Marvin: I know you've several more books in the casting series, and I know you've got

Marvin: the last of that series is going to get released in September.

Steve: Yes, September 3rd.

Marvin: And so I'm trying to remember if it was two years ago you had two of the books

Marvin: in this series out is that right or was it just one.

Steve: I think it two were out and the third coming out last time we spoke.

Steve: So Casting Onward, which since we've spoke,

Steve: has been the last number of months, number one on Amazon, which is a beautiful

Steve: thing, and was highlighted in the movie Mending the Line, which is why it had a second life.

Steve: And then Casting Onward was the second book. I think those two were out when

Steve: we spoke last. Casting Seaward was coming out.

Steve: And it's now been out for two years. And since I seem to be running it about

Steve: one book every two years, casting Homeward, which is the final in the casting

Steve: series with Lions Press, that comes out September 3rd.

Steve: And it's on pre-order right now for people that want to pre-order. And I'm really excited.

Marvin: Yeah, it's super neat too. And I know, you know, because we've talked a little

Marvin: bit, that you're sort of meditating on what the next project will be because

Marvin: you are in perpetual motion a little bit like I am.

Steve: Yes and i i basically know

Steve: the next project it's not something i'm

Steve: going to go public with yet except to say that i'm excited about

Steve: it it's challenging and it's the kind

Steve: of thing uh you and i've talked before my writing is

Steve: is a lot about destination both in

Steve: reality and philosophically and um

Steve: so yeah it's an expansion on even though it's it's the start of something completely

Steve: new from the casting series it's a great expansion um in a wonderful i think

Steve: it's going to be a great adventure for everyone and they get to do it with me

Steve: without um you know the mosquitoes and,

Steve: and the bears yeah and.

Marvin: And while they wait they can always read your column in fly fisherman magazine.

Steve: And that's true. And thank you for bringing that up. I'm actually quite open

Steve: about the fact that I feel very fortunate and love it that I'm a small part

Steve: of the Fly Fisherman Magazine family.

Steve: I do love it.

Marvin: Yeah, it's a neat magazine. And I think Ross has done a really good job of kind

Marvin: of bringing that magazine into the 21st century.

Steve: See that's i'm gonna say stuff and i'm up front ross is my friend and and i'm

Steve: and uh so i have to say that right up front but he's my friend because of who

Steve: i see him and how i see him and i think he's worked really hard to make that

Steve: such a rounded experience everything from how to,

Steve: to where to to why to um you know why we do it and then what's our responsibility

Steve: which is the the part I love the most,

Steve: you know, I think he's really getting us all to sync or helping us bringing

Steve: people together to help all of us think together about how we can protect what

Steve: we love, you know, and love what we protect.

Steve: So yeah, I'm definitely, I don't mean to go on too much, but I think he's done

Steve: a great job and I'm really very happy to be part of it.

Marvin: Yeah, it's very neat. And, you know, we've talked multiple times since the last

Marvin: interview and, you know, one of the things I always enjoy about our conversations

Marvin: and I enjoy this, This, you know, not all of my interviews are like this,

Marvin: but I love what I call the journey interview.

Marvin: And, you know, we've been kind of kicking around. I mean, gosh,

Marvin: we've probably been talking about this for six months.

Marvin: You know, kind of what did we want to talk about when we got together again?

Marvin: And, you know, I don't generally do interviews where it's like the book's out.

Marvin: Let's talk about the book. But we thought it would be kind of interesting to

Marvin: just talk about lessons from the river.

Marvin: And, you know, I mean, I think we've got a handful of kind of topics.

Marvin: But, you know, I'll kind of open it up because, I mean, one of the things,

Marvin: you know, everyone that knows me, everyone will get ready to laugh.

Marvin: I'll say I'm moderately wound tightly.

Steve: I laugh too.

Marvin: And so, you know, one of the things I think that's really one of the things

Marvin: I've kind of taken away from kind of my life, you know, on the water is that

Marvin: you can only take what the river is willing to give you.

Steve: Right. Just like life. No matter how much we think we have control, we don't.

Steve: We only have control over our decisions. So you can cast over here,

Steve: cast over there, stand here, stand there, and it's pretty much like.

Steve: It doesn't mean you know it's coming around the bend.

Marvin: Yeah. And you know, we can control how we react to those situations as well.

Steve: Right. That's exactly, that's a lot of times I'll write to myself and to others.

Steve: I'll say I can do nothing about what happens in life or what happens in fishing.

Steve: They're really the same. I mean, it's been said before, but you can really connect

Steve: anything you want to, to fly fishing in nature and you can learn anything if you pay attention.

Steve: Attention so um but it's it's

Steve: true i can choose i can see what's happening

Steve: and then i can make a choice choice of my

Steve: response rather than simply react out

Steve: of emotion i can respond out of something bigger than that so i do think it

Steve: all connects whether you're deciding i'm going to toss a dry fly right now and

Steve: i'm going to do it here in this way or i'm gonna i'm going to do something that

Steve: i'm not a big fan of but i've done it a lot of it which is nymphing and um,

Steve: but in life we do the same thing.

Steve: You know, we can take a moment and decide this is what I'm going to do.

Steve: Some of the best things are scary.

Marvin: Yeah, and it's interesting too, right? Because, you know, kind of with my kind

Marvin: of lawyer banker background, you know, if you apply enough force and resources,

Marvin: you should get what you want.

Marvin: And, you know, one of the things is you just, you know, some days you go fish

Marvin: and it's like, this is all we can get today.

Steve: Right and it's okay and the victory is can you go fishing catch nothing and have a great time,

Steve: and my answer is always yes but i know uh you know i remember a friend who golfed,

Steve: i don't even remember his name now it was so long ago and i asked him

Steve: why he loved golf he said it's so relaxing and i

Steve: was a big runner back then and uh because

Steve: i could be and i was running the trail through the golf course

Steve: and i heard some guys cursing through cursing and

Steve: and i saw this golf club come flying

Steve: past my head it was him um you know fly fishing and golfing is is like an island

Steve: if you you don't bring it with you you're not going to find it so he didn't

Steve: bring peace with them he wasn't going to find it um but you but yes if you bring

Steve: peace to the that river you seek it You're going to find it.

Steve: And I learned so much by paying attention as an angler about life and about myself.

Steve: So, yeah, the reflection in the water is more than just you. Yeah.

Marvin: It's interesting, too, because, you know, I'm fortunate enough to get to spend

Marvin: time with people because, you know, I always say I'll be proper since it's you

Marvin: and say, you know, fly fishing is something that heals me.

Marvin: And so if I can, you know, bring that to other people, I'm always happy to do that.

Marvin: And one of the things I try to tell people because beginners so often get so

Marvin: frustrated and it's like there's so many tiny victories from a day on the water.

Steve: Yes and if you really want to be brave and this

Steve: is you know everything is subjective so this is

Steve: my subjective view if people read my work you'll

Steve: find that i'm constantly throwing myself into positions i've never

Steve: been in before and doing things i've never tried before so

Steve: i'm always a beginner and you've

Steve: got to learn how to forgive yourself when things don't go right that's

Steve: how how you learn so um i constantly

Steve: i'm trying something new and it's

Steve: really cool so i'm 63 years old

Steve: but i don't feel it i feel like a kid

Steve: because i'm always trying something new and if it doesn't work out big deal

Steve: i mean your kid you fall in the mud you get back up uh when you're adult you

Steve: fall in the mud and you you think your day's ruined so i'm definitely a 63 year

Steve: old kid And I like it. I like it.

Marvin: Yeah, it's interesting too, right? Because there's, you know,

Marvin: when you face that kind of adversity and newness and, you know,

Marvin: you don't always triumph, however we want to define triumphing.

Marvin: But, you know, what I think it does is it expands your capacity to do more crazy stuff, right? Yeah.

Steve: Yeah and i think it it's all practice so

Steve: if you um i think the failure there's

Steve: the failure is possible but to me failure is

Steve: if you've failed to complete something you're trying to do or trying to learn

Steve: and then you didn't learn anything from it then you failed but if you if you

Steve: made a mistake and then you learn from it you pick up and you go again then

Steve: you're good you're golden so i love it To me, fly fishing,

Steve: lessons from the river are always coming.

Steve: They're always there. And I think we brought this up because I was sharing with

Steve: you earlier that no matter what I write in that, there's going to be lessons

Steve: from the river embedded into that book.

Steve: There have been in the past, but there's going to be more.

Steve: And that is because, again, my subjective opinion, the world is really hurting right now.

Steve: And to me, we humans are the proximate cause of that hurt, including to ourselves.

Steve: And so if we ask ourselves, what can we do to make things better?

Steve: The first thing we got to do is make ourselves better.

Steve: Fly fishing the river and paying attention in nature helps me become a better

Steve: person. Does that make sense?

Marvin: No, it does. And, you know, while you were saying that, I was kind of thinking

Marvin: about something, you know, a lot of what I do. I, you know, and I've talked

Marvin: to you a lot about my boys and they're at that age where, you know, I'm coaching, right?

Marvin: But I, but I'm also sort of, you know, try to, you know, be a helpful soul in the world.

Marvin: And it's kind of interesting because, you know, to your point,

Marvin: there's so much rancor, right?

Marvin: And to me, it's a choice, right? You know, whether you want to get up in the

Marvin: morning and have a little bit of outrage on your cornflakes or not.

Steve: Not for me.

Marvin: Right. Right. And so, you know, it's funny. And so like, I, I really push my

Marvin: boys and I'll, you know, uh, you know, push other people in my circle.

Marvin: I just kind of suggest that maybe they should start by being the change they want to see in the world.

Steve: Right and that's where it starts i mean that's what we can

Steve: do i had a deep conversation with a friend yesterday who

Steve: spent 30 40 years of her life working for

Steve: peace in the world and we we talked about

Steve: the struggles and and i i have

Steve: another friend that spent time with the dalai lama and spent time

Steve: with the doctor of the dalai lama and one day she was

Steve: complaining she was actually talking to the doctor of the

Steve: dalai lama about struggles she was having in

Steve: in dealing with the world and he just

Steve: leaned over and said you can always feed the birds he

Steve: said what she says you can feed the birds all we

Steve: can do is what we can do you know so sometimes what i do is those small thing

Steve: and on the river those are some of those small things you know i was with uh

Steve: years ago in a road casting onward i was on a river high up in the mountains

Steve: of colorado with kirk dieter from from Trout Unlimited, also a dear friend.

Steve: And Kirk and I were fishing together and this young man with his girlfriend

Steve: came down and basically they parked by our car because they saw that we were

Steve: there, so they figured it might

Steve: be a good fishing spot and he just jumped right where we were gonna go.

Steve: And went and fished right in the water we were gonna go to. And I watched how

Steve: Kirk handled that, which was beautiful. He says he probably has no idea what he's doing.

Steve: So Kirk offered to teach him how to be more successful fishing.

Steve: Gave him some great tips, and then handed him some flies that he could use.

Steve: And then was able to teach him in that process etiquette.

Steve: You know, where other people might have yelled at this young man who it turned

Steve: out just came out of the military after serving in Afghanistan.

Steve: He just didn't know what he was doing.

Steve: So, yeah, I don't want any cornflake. I don't want any rage in my cornflake.

Steve: You know, I carried a weapon for 35 years. I don't need any more.

Marvin: Yeah. It's interesting too, Steve, because, you know, I'm always fascinated,

Marvin: you know, talking to creatives.

Marvin: And, you know, I'm fortunate to be able to interview a lot of authors and other

Marvin: creators, you know, on the podcast.

Marvin: And, you know, kind of one of the things too, kind of another thing I think

Marvin: about when I think about lessons from the river is how it helps us create that

Marvin: serendipitous space, right, to solve problems and to be creative.

Steve: Right.

Steve: It does. It does. And why don't you tell me a little bit more of how you see

Steve: that? Now I'm interviewing.

Marvin: Oh, fair enough. I'll indulge you. It's fine.

Marvin: So, you know, it's an interesting thing, right?

Marvin: So if you go back and if I say that I'm moderately, tightly wound,

Marvin: right? So you think that, you know, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, it works.

Marvin: And, you know, I don't know when I sort of connected this dot late,

Marvin: no doubt, but that, you know, you just don't schedule at nine o'clock on Friday

Marvin: morning, I'm going to find the cure for cancer.

Marvin: Right. It just doesn't, it doesn't work like that. Right. And,

Marvin: and so, you know, for me, I try to kind of order the world in what I call strategic and tactical.

Marvin: Okay. And, you know, strategic is kind of a narrow word, really,

Marvin: because it's all it's any I would say it's any kind of created and creative endeavor.

Marvin: And I think that, you know, not relentlessly applying force and resources.

Marvin: Sometimes you just have to learn how to do that and that it's OK and that it's

Marvin: not a waste of time. Right.

Steve: OK. And. You know, I've learned so much from all the different things that I've done in Marine Corps.

Steve: Of course when you start talking about strategy and tactics then i go

Steve: there in my head i go to your strategy as a

Steve: plan and tactics are the way you execute that plan but um

Steve: they're also a great lesson in that life happens to us as we plan and i think

Steve: the number one thing we're going to have for the 21st century that's going to

Steve: decide which of us are going to survive as part of our species is our ability to deal with the,

Steve: we do not know what's coming next.

Steve: So we're going to have to be able to deal with that.

Steve: And yeah, I think we do have to hold space.

Steve: When we're fly fishing, we're on a river, we're in nature and anything,

Steve: whether you're a fisher, hunter, or a wildlife photographer,

Steve: there is serendipity involved in that process.

Steve: Process and that has to be a lot of times what happens for

Steve: me is the best things happen when i simply wait or i

Steve: i just i'm open to them happening i'm paying

Steve: attention and you keep hearing me saying paying attention paying attention because

Steve: that's that's what it is and when i find myself being blocked even as a writer

Steve: i'm thinking okay what am i going to do here you know the terror of the blank

Steve: page uh the first thing i'm going to do is make some coffee and relax and just

Steve: let it be there's this there's,

Steve: we creating force and also i spent years in martial arts as well and i learned

Steve: studying aikido that uh force is not always the answer a lot of times it's redirecting force,

Steve: so um yeah you can't force it yep you just can't you just got to go with the

Steve: flow and that's such a cliche but um see what there is so many ways that i look

Steve: at what we do standing in a river,

Steve: I'm much more of a river guy than a lake guy, by the way, because I like movement.

Steve: I love fishing in the surf and reading the surf.

Steve: It makes you pay attention. It makes you focus and learn and adapt and improvise and overcome.

Steve: And so to me, fly fishing, obviously, is just something that grabs all of that.

Steve: And we've talked before about it being healing. it's certainly a conduit for

Steve: creativity if we're open but if if what our focus is is how many fish we can

Steve: catch and how big they are then we're very limited especially as i i see our rivers are are,

Steve: largely suffering with every passing year um i think there's a whole lot more

Steve: to it than that i think what you call fly fishing the bicycle yes yeah i like

Steve: that a lot so um yeah i'll hope I didn't go on too much there.

Marvin: No, not at all. And I would say I'll also have to acknowledge,

Marvin: Steve, that that's a little bit building on a metaphor that Steve Jobs had at

Marvin: Apple, where he said that computers, I think, were bicycles for the brain.

Steve: Okay. Well, and again, it is much more convoluted. So your listeners are going

Steve: to hear how deep we get here.

Steve: Because I mentioned before, everything's like an island, which if you don't

Steve: have it with you, if you don't bring it there, it's not there.

Steve: And what we bring to the river, what we bring to our life, we can either have

Steve: rage or we can... I've had people that were saying, well, I'm just so angry

Steve: about that, and I'll listen to them, and I'll say, okay, well,

Steve: you have a right to be that way if that's what you want.

Steve: And they'd say, what do you mean, if that's what you want? I said,

Steve: well, you could choose not to be angry.

Steve: I mean, again, I'm going to get kind of zen here, but I think it was the Dalai

Steve: Lama that said, you will not be punished for your anger. Your anger is your punishment.

Steve: So, the last person to flip me off in traffic, I think I blew a kiss.

Steve: Which freaked him out a bit.

Marvin: Yeah yeah yeah some people could say that was passive-aggressive but but uh maybe.

Steve: But i i just i just laughed like wouldn't you so angry about you're such a rush

Steve: and we're all going to the same place so um.

Marvin: Yeah it it's it's an interesting thing about uh you know while while we're kind

Marvin: of in this little zen place you know it's like it's funny because i'll I'll

Marvin: like tell my boys sometimes I was like, you know, so if you're twice as angry,

Marvin: how, what does that help you change?

Marvin: Right. In the metaphor I use with them to help them understand that as I said,

Marvin: so once you see the tiger, if you're twice as scared, do you run any faster?

Steve: Perfect. Perfect.

Marvin: Right.

Steve: And we'll serve you to run.

Marvin: Yeah.

Steve: So, um, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, we get, we get to be human and, and we all are.

Steve: And so here again, I use the river metaphor and it goes part of my,

Steve: you know, imperfect text and Buddha persona that I've taken on myself.

Steve: And I get these things that grab a hold of me in that negative way.

Steve: I look at them like I'm analyzing something in a glass box and I say,

Steve: okay, I'm feeling anxiety or anger or stress or whatever it happens to be. Why is that?

Steve: And then I think it through and I think, you know, what do you want to do about

Steve: it? And then when I figured that out, I stick that in the river and let it float

Steve: around the corner and let it go.

Steve: That sounds cliche, but it works

Steve: for me because I can only do what I can do. So we go back to fishing.

Steve: You can go and have a fantastic time no matter what happens.

Steve: Or you can choose to be pissed off because it didn't come out the way you planned.

Steve: And, you know, the fish don't have a script. And their job is to survive and

Steve: procreate and pass on their genetics just like us.

Steve: Their job is not to get caught by you. Yes. So, uh, I'm, I'm never upset if

Steve: I don't catch the fish, that's my fault.

Steve: And when I do catch them, it's wonderful. And then I treat them nicely,

Steve: you know, unless we're going to eat them.

Marvin: It's interesting too, you know, because talking about bringing things to the

Marvin: island always, you know, makes me think about how important it is to bring curiosity

Marvin: to the island and what a safe place fly fishing is to be curious.

Steve: Oh, I love that. I love that. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And we're losing that, I think.

Steve: And again, I'm just being, you know, I'm saying what I think doesn't mean I'm right.

Steve: But to me, one of the problems with the answer at your fingertips is we're losing

Steve: our creativity, and we're also becoming way too easy to simply accept.

Steve: If you don't have – I talked about being a 63-year-old kid.

Steve: Well, I'm forever flipping rocks over. When I was a little kid,

Steve: I was always flipping rocks over to see what lived under there.

Steve: I know, oh, a salamander. Oh, under the water, I have some rocks.

Steve: Okay, there's some mayfly.

Steve: I'm still doing that. and it

Steve: keep that curiosity what's going on here today and what

Steve: does it mean and what can i what can i learn from this it also puts us into

Steve: a really good sense of our place in the world and you and i have talked about

Steve: this um you know we're we're a blip a nice blip or blip.

Marvin: Yeah it's an interesting thing it's really kind of a great kind of segue kind

Marvin: of into the kind of the next thing i was going to talk about which is how it

Marvin: helps us get out of that egocentric worldview,

Marvin: right and you know um you know you can get a lot of perspective like you can

Marvin: get perspective if you're in yellowstone and you get lost or you see a bear

Marvin: right yes yes like that's one kind of perspective but i also too to your point

Marvin: i think you know when you look at um,

Marvin: You know, when you're observant and you see, you know, what's going on,

Marvin: but you also see, you know, entire life cycles that are much shorter than yours, right?

Marvin: How does that inform how you should live your life, right? Sure.

Marvin: You know, I think I've told you before, I have a favorite rock that's three-fourths

Marvin: of the way through a way trip that I take relatively frequently where I sit

Marvin: and eat the sandwich and watch the kingfishers.

Steve: I love that.

Marvin: And, you know, I, I know, I know about how long I have, you know,

Marvin: on some days I can sit on the rock and you can smell the deer,

Marvin: but you can't see the deer.

Steve: Oh yeah. I love that. I love that. That is, that is what it's all about.

Marvin: Yeah. And so, you know, it's an interesting thing. And I think,

Marvin: you know, that, you know, helping with context, um, also might,

Marvin: you know, help us maybe find something other than rage for the cornflakes in the morning.

Steve: Sure. And there's times when I think, I don't want to say rage, but maybe outrage.

Steve: I don't know. There's times when it's okay to say this is wrong.

Steve: And that's another thing I love that fly fishing can do for us.

Steve: It connects us not just to a fish, but the fish to the river,

Steve: the river to the mayflies, the riparian habitat, the need we have trees to cool the water.

Steve: And it goes on and goes on and why we need rain. And once you've done all that

Steve: connection, you understand how small you are, but also that you're part of this

Steve: huge thing that is so beautiful.

Steve: And once we have that, it's okay for us to feel a certain degree of this is

Steve: wrong when we notice that people are throwing their beer cans in the river.

Steve: Or um that they're randomly killing fish and throwing them up on the on the

Steve: shore to die or you know we could go on and on about that but then how do we deal with that,

Steve: and so what i love too is a lot of

Steve: fly fishing organizations and i'm not a big

Steve: organization guy even though i am a life member of trial

Steve: unlimited uh are doing great work

Steve: at cleaning up rivers of of teaching people to respect nature

Steve: and each other and that

Steve: to me is what we need to pass on you know that that

Steve: respect that empathy so empathy for the

Steve: fish and i have killed and eaten fish so it's

Steve: not like i'm you know saying this is you

Steve: get where i'm coming from i do we have we

Steve: have empathy for the fish so i have asthma and heart disease

Steve: and i write about that in this fourth book coming out and with my asthma which

Steve: is beginning progressively worse i remember what it's like not to be able to

Steve: breathe so when i pull take a fish i try to keep it in the water and i always

Steve: know if i have to bring that for some reason that one eye is looking towards the water,

Steve: wanting to get back and the other eye is looking right at me and i've got it

Steve: life in my hand literally that kind of empathy um is something i see us losing in the world.

Steve: And this is coming not this is coming from a former u.s marine that you know

Steve: i'm saying i'm it's not um i'm not a big mush but i am uh every true warrior

Steve: i've ever known has nothing to prove,

Steve: um and i've served with a lot of them and they

Steve: had nothing to prove there was no big ego they knew that they were small and

Steve: i don't mean to be too graphic here but i've seen a lot of death they had seen

Steve: a lot of death and all you have to do is notice what it's like to see a human

Steve: being turn into a sack of potatoes and you realize okay i'm not that important

Steve: except for what good i can do here,

Steve: So I think fly fishing, being in nature, it is part of what we need both in

Steve: the healing of our world and ourselves and in the teaching to remind us.

Steve: And I hope you don't mind. I went a little crazy there in sharing,

Steve: but I'm passionate about it.

Marvin: Yeah, it deeply concerns me in a slightly different way.

Marvin: And so I see – and part of this great thing about being on a river where your

Marvin: phone doesn't work, which I think is glorious,

Marvin: is finding that connection and being truly connected to the resource.

Marvin: And I think, you know, as I watch the challenges that, say, for example,

Marvin: some of our not-for-profits are facing, I mean, people are not engaged.

Marvin: Engaged, and this isn't in a judgmental way, but if you look at the data,

Marvin: you know, if people fly fish one to three days a year, and that's half the people

Marvin: that fly fish in a year, it deeply concerns me.

Marvin: It's actually something I've made a mental note to sit down and talk to Chris

Marvin: Wood the next time I'm with him, because I think that, you know,

Marvin: if you fast forward 15 years,

Marvin: we're going to start to really see how difficult it's going to be to care about

Marvin: these things that i know you care deeply about.

Steve: Right um.

Marvin: Because we're literally breeding that attachment out of our humanity.

Steve: Yes i'm so

Steve: glad you brought that up and i i'm um the

Steve: fourth book the one that's coming out and this is actually this is not a

Steve: book plug i'm there's a real reason i'm telling you this i

Steve: am very honored that uh a gentleman

Steve: has become a friend richard louve who wrote last

Steve: child in the woods and i don't know if you're aware of that book but

Steve: it's a it's a book that i wish at least every parent would

Steve: would read um every school board

Steve: should be mandatory reading um but

Steve: anyhow last child in the woods and and i'm very pleased that richard louve has

Steve: done the forward for this fourth book and um pleased and honored but he's really

Steve: that's What his focus has been is our connection to what we're doing with our children.

Steve: We don't save what we don't love, and we don't love what we don't know.

Steve: And as a former warrior, and I don't say that, you know, flippantly like somebody

Steve: just has a sticker on their pickup truck.

Steve: I've actually been out there and done hard stuff.

Steve: As a former warrior, you know that how you train people to kill other people

Steve: is to take the humanity away from the target.

Steve: And we're taking the reason to care away from nature.

Steve: We're treating it as a thing to be used up and spit out.

Steve: And there's too many of us. There's 8 billion of us and growing.

Steve: And it's going to take care of itself if we don't. Because I was fishing for this book, actually.

Steve: I was fishing the Big Hole River, which has lost, I don't remember the actual

Steve: number, but something like 40% of its trout gone.

Steve: And we're seeing this impact. But here's where I see the hope.

Steve: I think us anglers, I think us people who are part of the outdoor community,

Steve: anglers, ethical hunters, people who are into gardening, all these sort of groups,

Steve: we're the ones that can drive this forward and say no more.

Steve: We're the ones that can say, I'd love to see what Richard Louv has written about,

Steve: that every child is exposed to nature as part of their teaching,

Steve: as part of their learning and growing.

Steve: I mean, everything attaches to it. And if they had that, first of all,

Steve: I think it's going to make their life richer.

Steve: And in this book, I actually have a little thing I say where I wish that every

Steve: child in Gaza and Israel had to go fishing together as a mandatory part of their education.

Steve: Now, that may seem very Pollyanna, and I'm not silly. I know what the real problems are there.

Steve: I was dealing with Islamic jihad up close and personal when I was in my 20s.

Steve: But I do know that I saw how people separate themselves from each other and from nature.

Steve: And as long as you treat all of this as just something to be used,

Steve: then you're not going to care until it's too late.

Steve: I don't know if you saw the thing where howler monkeys are falling out of the

Steve: trees in Yucatan dead from the heat.

Marvin: No, I haven't.

Steve: Yeah. I mean, that's just one of many things I can bring up right now.

Steve: And I want people to pay attention because I don't know about all the anglers

Steve: in the world, but I can tell you I would not be interested in going into an

Steve: ocean or down a river where I knew everything was dead.

Steve: I'm just not interested i wouldn't be interested in

Steve: knowing that it's all been done in a stainless steel

Steve: tank and dumped in there for me to catch like it was a kiddie pool and that's

Steve: the direction i'm afraid we're going to go if we don't pull together and say

Steve: we love this and we want to keep it alive so yeah i'm i'm passionate about it

Steve: there's no doubt about it and and i don't hey Hey,

Steve: like I said, I'm a 63-year-old kid. I don't care if people make fun of me.

Marvin: Yeah, but I think there's even a broader issue there, Steve,

Marvin: is I think it's not consumptive just as it relates to the outdoors.

Marvin: It's consumptive for everything, right?

Steve: I agree. We've been sold that bill of goods.

Marvin: And so everything now is a packaged experience.

Marvin: And so, you know, you look at, I mean, it was interesting. I was actually eating

Marvin: a sandwich in one of the local grocery stores, and I like going there because

Marvin: I talk to the people that work there, right, which is a rare thing.

Marvin: It actually shocks them, almost scares some of them.

Steve: And you know I do the same thing, by the way. You know that about me. Yeah.

Marvin: And so about living in community and all of these things that we've lost where,

Marvin: you know, if you door dash – and I'm not hating on this, and I want to talk

Marvin: about tech too because I think it's a really important adjacent issue.

Marvin: You, I just think we should be mindful because there's such tremendous value

Marvin: at eating dinner at the kitchen table.

Marvin: There's tremendous value in baking cookies with your grandmother and going and

Marvin: cutting down a Christmas tree.

Marvin: And I'm not saying like these are pinnacle experiences, but where everything

Marvin: is just an exchange, we become disconnected.

Steve: Right. I so deeply agree.

Steve: And people may say, well, what does this have to do with fishing?

Steve: It has everything to do with fishing because fishing is like,

Steve: you know, we talk about lessons from the river.

Steve: Standing in a river, everything we ever wanted to know about life, we can learn.

Steve: And it really is, everything is connected and that includes us.

Steve: We're mostly made of, I've written this before, we're made of stardust and water. That's it.

Steve: That can contemplate itself briefly. So yeah, I mentioned to you that I do the same thing.

Steve: I read people's name tags. I call them by first name.

Steve: There's sometimes the only good I can do in the world is to be kind to somebody

Steve: in the grocery store. And something happened.

Steve: So I was just telling my wife that one of the clerks from the grocery store

Steve: here went off to the military in his boot camp right now, just sent me a letter from boot camp.

Steve: And we've only talked when she was checking me out, you know,

Steve: when I'm getting groceries and she's working at the cash register.

Steve: And she just sent me a letter from boot camp.

Steve: We need community.

Steve: We need to treat people differently.

Steve: You know i that we see them and i think we also need to see each other um and we need to see uh,

Steve: again you're i'm getting into my sort of thing but right now

Steve: one part of the things i'm writing in a lot into this fourth book is that all

Steve: living things are living beings that doesn't mean i didn't shoot a kudu in africa

Steve: i did um so um but i was aware of its aliveness do you get what i mean No.

Marvin: No, I do. And I mean, it's, you know, I knew what I did.

Steve: Yeah.

Marvin: And it's, I mean, you knew it, you were in, but you appreciated it, right?

Steve: Yes. And all of that meat was donated to the local Herero tribe and the money

Steve: I paid went to wildlife protection in Namibia.

Steve: And I knew what the practice was of what I was doing, the campfire project to,

Steve: to help, help people have some monetary dog in the hunt of keeping wildlife alive in Africa.

Steve: Oddly enough, by allowing some people to come kill them.

Marvin: Yeah. And it kind of comes a little bit back full circle because it's another

Marvin: thing that I kind of fixate on when I talk to my boys. Like I talk about being

Marvin: the change that you want to see.

Marvin: And then what you find is people are outraged by lack of community,

Marvin: but then when you ask them what they do, they don't do anything.

Marvin: And I'm not saying that in a judgmental way, I'm saying that in an observational way, right?

Marvin: And I find it incredibly powerful to watch that and say, well,

Marvin: you know, if it bothers you so much, you know, what are you going to do?

Marvin: What one thing can you do today, right?

Steve: Right.

Marvin: To make it better. Right. And, you know, and not to go, you know,

Marvin: watch whatever news you want to watch. It's completely your business. I don't care.

Marvin: You know, it's just how does that add to your journey? And it kind of gets us

Marvin: to this technology point.

Marvin: And I preface all of this by saying I love technology, right?

Marvin: You know, when I was 10 years old, 11 years old, we had one TRS-80 in my middle school.

Marvin: We didn't have a hard drive. I don't even think they had hard drives.

Marvin: They didn't pay for floppy disks in the TRS-80, so we would sit at lunch and

Marvin: write computer code. So I love tech, right?

Steve: Yeah, I had an abacus.

Marvin: Well, I would think you're a

Marvin: slide rule guy. I would give you a little bit more credit than an abacus.

Marvin: But I've been asked to give a talk on generative AI with creatives at the Outdoor

Marvin: Writers Association meeting in July.

Marvin: And I think this is a fundamental issue of what it means to be human.

Marvin: And, you know, I generally think about these things as their shovels and their tools.

Marvin: And some of that's generational because I'm – That's what I was going to say.

Marvin: Yeah. I'm a Gen Xer, but I always tell people, like, the shovel is not inherently bad.

Marvin: But if I hit you on the head, I did something bad with the shovel.

Marvin: And I think we need to be incredibly reflective.

Marvin: And this flows back into these lessons from the water because you start to appreciate

Marvin: your humanity while you're there, right?

Steve: Sure.

Marvin: And so do you need, like, AI can be very, very useful. But, like,

Marvin: what is it that you want to allow it to do for you?

Steve: Well, yeah.

Steve: I can't speak much to AI right this moment, but I can say this,

Steve: that first of all, I see it the same way you do as a tool.

Steve: I see everything from a firearm to a fork to a shovel as a tool.

Steve: And what happens to it is an extension of the choices made by the person operating it.

Steve: And with that said, and that's true even if you're standing on the river with someone.

Steve: By the way, one of the greatest things I'd love to do is teach someone and watch

Steve: them experience catching their first fish.

Steve: Um there's a scene in the movie mending the

Steve: line that was actually i'm grateful to say

Steve: taken from me where the main character ike

Steve: he teaches the young man how to

Steve: be grateful to the fish because you know this about me already because we've

Steve: been friends for a while that uh i say thank you to fish when i release it and

Steve: the character says thank you and he teaches the other young marine that and

Steve: that marine then comes up with his own thing and says peace um i think the teaching part,

Steve: so getting back to the technology and technology you and i have become friends

Steve: and i've met some of the best friends of my life through technology i met some

Steve: of the best people of my life i use technology for me to write my books and

Steve: my stories and my essays which i hope help people.

Steve: It's a tool and it can be used for really beautiful things or really ugly things.

Marvin: And I think you can say that again in an observational way where it's not that

Marvin: what you write is the Catholic sense of what's right,

Marvin: not to get the double entendre with right, but it's a posture in the world of

Marvin: generosity and being deliberately generous that I think is so powerful.

Steve: Powerful yeah i wish that our so it used to be when i was a very young person

Steve: in my life that i fell into the idea of do what's right do what's right but

Steve: then i learned i grew up and i learned that a lot of people doing horrible things

Steve: think they're doing the right thing,

Steve: um as i said no one in any foxhole fighting in any war on either side ever thought

Steve: to themselves i I wish I wasn't the bad guy.

Steve: They always think they're doing the right thing. To me, it's more about us having values that are.

Steve: So when you mentioned about where people get their news or which way they vote,

Steve: I don't get into any of that. I don't have to.

Steve: I don't have to knock anybody down because I can raise them up.

Steve: I can simply say, is this person I'm choosing to spend time with kind?

Steve: Are they brave? You know, are they willing to learn? Are they open-minded or

Steve: are they fixed in their ideology?

Steve: As long as I can answer all those questions, then the rest of it takes care of itself.

Steve: And I think we see that too when we're looking at getting back to rivers.

Steve: If we're going to save our rivers, if we're going to save the fish,

Steve: if we're going to save the trees, and they're going fast, we had better break

Steve: that out of our fixed ideas of consumption.

Steve: You know, Edward Abbey said, unlimited growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.

Steve: Sorry, did I wander again?

Marvin: Right? Right. That I think that. And one of the greatest gifts we can share

Marvin: with other people is sharing our time with them and sitting with them in the darkness.

Steve: Yes.

Steve: Yes.

Steve: Absolutely. And in taking and accepting, here again, we'll go back to the lessons from the river.

Steve: You can't say, I'm going to go to the river and it's going to be this way today.

Steve: You go to the river and you have to adapt to how it is. Is it running fast? Is it running low?

Steve: Is it clear? Is it, you know, is it got a lot of silt in it?

Steve: What's going on? And it's the same with humans.

Steve: So I've fished with some wonderful people in my books. And part of what I'm

Steve: writing about is that relationship.

Steve: And there's some people that I, frankly, I love every single person I've fished with.

Steve: But I know I'm going to have a whole different experience depending on who it

Steve: is, and I'll leave names out of this. But I know if I go with one person,

Steve: it's going to be a hard-driving angling experience because that's where they're at.

Steve: They want to get to the river as fast as they can, get on the river,

Steve: in fact, and they're focused on catching fish, catching fish.

Steve: And I'm, well, another person, we're going to sit on the tailgate for a half

Steve: hour and talk before we even start.

Steve: I have my own preference of how I do that, but I can do it both ways.

Steve: And I'm just, I accept them where they're at, just like the river.

Steve: You know, if you want to drive, sure, I'll catch up with you.

Steve: We'll get to the river, we'll fish.

Steve: But slowly, they'll notice me sitting on a rock just watching the river go by

Steve: and see how weird I am that I don't have to be fishing all the time.

Steve: I can have that sandwich on that favorite rock like you and watch the kingfishers

Steve: and be really, really happy.

Steve: I think we teach each other things, not through judgment, but through just doing and being together.

Steve: Does that make sense, as I always say?

Marvin: No, it does. I mean, it really comes back to this idea of being in community, right? Yes.

Marvin: And, you know, I think humans are unfortunately incredibly adept at differentiating.

Marvin: And I think, you know, if you get to focus on all of these things that we have

Marvin: in common, so to, you know, for example, in fishing, we share this love of fly fishing, right? Right.

Marvin: You may be a warrior fly fisherman. You may be a poet fly fisherman.

Marvin: But the question is, you know, where does the common ground from that,

Marvin: your experience on the water and sharing that with other people,

Marvin: you know, how does that inform?

Marvin: Because I think all of these things, right, if you kind of come out of this,

Marvin: they're practices if you see them.

Marvin: You know, they're not only about fly fishing. It's why I say fly fishing is

Marvin: a bicycle. there are modalities and habits that you can bring back to your regular

Marvin: life that make your life better.

Steve: Absolutely. Absolutely. More than anything I know, actually. But absolutely.

Steve: If that's what you're open to. And I think this is just, again, subjective.

Steve: If we address our fly fishing, if we address our interaction with nature,

Steve: then our interaction with each other through that lens, our lives get better and it ripples out.

Steve: And that is also i'm going to bring it back to the

Steve: books in a second my books are written on purpose in a certain

Steve: way they're as you know that

Steve: they're they're full of fishing stories and adventures but that's

Steve: not what they're really about the first one casting forward is in here to texas

Steve: hill country where i'm from and then it goes across america going after native

Steve: fish through all the freshwater waters and then casting seaward that was casting

Steve: onward casting seaward is our oceans from Alaska all the way around and out

Steve: to the Caribbean and back.

Steve: And this last one, casting homeward, I'm traveling backwards in time from the

Steve: furthest reaches of Alaska all the way to New York City.

Steve: And by backwards in time, what I mean is I'm going backwards from the movement

Steve: of Euro-Americans as they spread across this country and interacted in often

Steve: not great ways with indigenous Americans.

Steve: Americans. And the next one I'll be doing without getting any details is going

Steve: to be looking at it very internationally.

Steve: Once we get outside the borders, once we get outside our hemisphere,

Steve: there's so much we find out we have in common.

Steve: So I could spend some time with my hard driving fishing friends and I realized,

Steve: oh, okay, I see what it is.

Steve: Where you live, you have to get to the river in a hurry because there's so many

Steve: anglers here. You're not going to get a spot.

Steve: I have to, you know, have some empathy and find out where they're at.

Steve: And I also have to remember that maybe when I was younger, maybe when I was

Steve: their age, I had to have been more hard-dragging.

Steve: Um, I'm at that place now where, you know, Bob White and I were up in Alaska

Steve: and on our last day, we decided to fish for a half day and then go into the

Steve: lodge together while everybody else was fishing.

Steve: And Bob painted while I wrote the book, you know, that was really cool for me,

Steve: but a lot of guys would never do that. I'm not going to waste a half day of fishing.

Steve: Um, but we both will be each other and said, we've caught all the fish we need

Steve: to in our life. Let's go, let's go paint and write.

Steve: So we're just in different places.

Marvin: Yeah, it's interesting, too. I mean, it's not just fly fishing.

Marvin: I mean, a lot of stuff in nature, you know, if you can leave a little bit of the technology behind.

Marvin: I mean, I literally started going to Montana because my BlackBerry didn't work there, right?

Steve: That was a long time ago, if you're saying BlackBerry.

Marvin: Yeah, and also, too, you know, it was kind of an exotic place.

Marvin: It's less exotic than it used to be. And so, you know, it was kind of like telling

Marvin: people at work that you were going to the moon. People were like,

Marvin: gosh, we can't get him. He's in Montana.

Marvin: Um, but it's this, it's, it's, it's fun. It's funny, but true.

Marvin: I mean, you know, and so, uh, I love it.

Steve: I, I, I used to have these high speed jobs where I made real money and they

Steve: would say to me, well, how do we get you?

Steve: And I say, you don't, they would always say that to me. How do, how do we reach you?

Steve: I said, you don't, I'm going to be on an Island or I'm going to be in the mountains.

Marvin: Yeah. It's, it's an interesting thing too, right? Where they don't want to pay

Marvin: you like you're irreplaceable, but then when you want to leave for a week, God forbid.

Marvin: You have to be tethered with an umbilical cord.

Steve: It's a uniquely American thing too, I'd have to say, as having lived different

Steve: parts of the world. Only in America have I seen where we are,

Steve: taught that our job is to do our job and you know when the economy is going

Steve: down the message everybody gets is spend more money spend more money bring the

Steve: economy up spend buy more stuff,

Steve: and then when you don't have enough room for that stuff you can always rent

Steve: space to hold your stuff that you don't use so uh this is getting off of fly

Steve: fishing but i'm trying to get well a little bit i'm trying to make sure that

Steve: my fly fishing quiver of rods and reels is exactly just what I need and nothing else.

Steve: And I'm donating the rest of the ones I have to good causes like Project Healing Waters.

Steve: And I am getting in my home down to the minimalist stuff of just what I need,

Steve: just the pots and pans and dishes and things that I need and want and the rest

Steve: of it. I am giving way to be repurposed.

Steve: It's so freeing.

Marvin: And you've already done that with your library, right?

Steve: Oh, yes. I gave away to the local library here

Steve: in my little town in texas uh four pickup

Steve: truck loads of books um and

Steve: they have what they didn't keep for

Steve: the library they sell it and make money for the library and

Steve: um yep so i've given away almost all of my books i have a very small collection

Steve: of books that i will not let go of and i read them again and again so uh when

Steve: i told bob white this he said to me i'm kind of interested in seeing which ones you kept yeah i.

Marvin: Would say a related question you know i think people are going to want to know

Marvin: you know what fly rods does the texan buddha think are critical to keep what do you have.

Steve: Well for me it's

Steve: weight um rather than getting into now i

Steve: have to say that almost it just so happens that so if

Steve: i talk to another one of my friends he's he's gonna say oh

Steve: i only use hardy and miller and tony use sage and all

Steve: that but i i most of my stuff is orbit surface um and um but when i talk about

Steve: the rods that i hold on to first of all i love glass but i also have graphite

Steve: and i have one beautiful bamboo rod that was made for me uh by jerry gustage and,

Steve: at sweet crop sweet grass rods so

Steve: um but at any rate uh for

Steve: me i like having in my quiver i

Steve: like having a three and a four because i love using light rods

Steve: in in high mountain streams or you

Steve: know and for smaller fish i i always am

Steve: going to have a five an eight uh and a ten so to me that covers things i have

Steve: a five eight and ten then and then i usually have multiple spools so like on

Steve: my eight weight i'm gonna have i have one it's a tropical floating line i'm

Steve: gonna have one that's It's an intermediate syncing line.

Steve: They have one that's really good for sheriff and going in deep. And that's what I do.

Steve: It's what do I want to achieve? It's not about how many things can I have. It's what tool...

Steve: Is going to get me where i need to be and to

Steve: do the to have the experience that i need that i

Steve: want to have so people have asked me well how how do you travel

Steve: all these places it's not because i have money it's

Steve: because i redirect what little i have so um to in order to do casting onward

Steve: i had to sell a lot of my firearms from my hunting life almost all of them actually

Steve: to help pay for airfare and things like that and we put our priorities where

Steve: we want them And for me, it's not about things, it's about experiences.

Steve: So yes, to me, if I have a three, a five, an eight, and a 10,

Steve: I'm pretty much covered for everything I want to do.

Marvin: Yeah, it's interesting. It's a, you know, this theme again of being deliberate, right?

Marvin: And, you know, I'm sort of the same way. And it's kind of funny,

Marvin: because I mean, I remember looking up at one point, and I was like,

Marvin: gosh, you know, I'm making all this money to spend all this money to make all

Marvin: this money to do something that doesn't fulfill me.

Marvin: And so you kind of jettison that and you know

Marvin: part of it too is i always tell people like i'm a generation x kid

Marvin: i grew up in the 70s like we're going to be fine right you

Marvin: know just a completely different thing where like you don't eat out every meal

Marvin: um you know you know you actually repair stuff which is kind of a mind-blowing

Marvin: thing to people uh right but you know it's an i don't know and i say this again

Marvin: it's just an observation it's just where i am in my journey I don't care what

Marvin: other people do. I'm not judging them.

Marvin: This works for me, right? Like I will always trade more rustic accommodations

Marvin: for more days on the water.

Steve: Yeah, I wish I could say that's true for me. I actually confessed up in this

Steve: fourth book that there was a time when I was a true wild man.

Steve: There was a time when I was quite happy that I could go out into the wilderness

Steve: and I did this all the time. Sometimes I did crazy things where I was making

Steve: a lean-to, because I chopped my own wood and built a lean-to and tie it together.

Steve: And I actually remember doing this in South Florida where I would cover it in

Steve: palm fronds, and that would be my shelter and sleep on the ground.

Steve: And those days are gone.

Steve: And I have to admit that while I will do those things, I have definitely really

Steve: enjoyed stepping out of a float plane and having someone hand me a glass of wine.

Steve: So judge me if you will. Like I said, things are a little more creaky than they used to be.

Steve: And I'm out there all day long and I'm fishing and I'm climbing and I'm doing all that stuff.

Steve: But it is sure cool to have a nice shower and glass of water today. So I'll fess up.

Marvin: Yeah, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the fishing, I think I can approve.

Steve: Sure, that's it. I'm not saying I'm skipping the fishing. I'm saying that,

Steve: you know, given the chance between the lean-to now, and when I was young,

Steve: that seemed all really cool.

Steve: But now I've got that kind of been there, done that. Yeah, I had the bears walk in on me.

Steve: Woke up once with the snake in my sleeping bag with me.

Steve: I've done it. I don't need to keep doing it. I have nothing to prove.

Steve: So, yeah, I'll put mosquito net on my head. That's okay. okay,

Steve: I was with my buddy Bob one time. We're on the St. Croix River.

Steve: He handed me this mosquito suit to put on while I was going to stay with the

Steve: boat while him and Lisa went to set up the vehicles.

Steve: And I said, oh, I won't need that. He just put it on.

Steve: Oh, my gosh. I was completely covered within seconds in mosquitoes.

Steve: I have no problem putting on the mosquito suits, what I'm telling you.

Marvin: Duly noted. And, you know, as we before we get back to kind of upcoming travel

Marvin: and book details and things like that, Steve, is there anything else that you

Marvin: can think of we should talk about in terms of lessons from the river?

Steve: Well, I guess the number one thing I'm going to share is that what keeps me

Steve: going is that I never stop learning.

Steve: And that's what's really cool about Lessons from the River, because we're always

Steve: changing. I hope we are. If we stop changing, we stop growing.

Steve: That's why I'm really against the idea of a fixed ideology of any kind,

Steve: because it means you're not growing anymore.

Steve: And I have a lot of younger friends, and I thought about, well, why is that?

Steve: And I thought, too many people my age have given up learning.

Steve: They're not learning anymore. They're not growing.

Steve: So I know that I don't know much of anything.

Steve: And I've changed my mind a lot because I've learned new information.

Steve: I think lessons of the river are eternal.

Steve: They keep coming. And as long as I keep saying we pay attention and we ask ourselves

Steve: honestly, how did I handle that?

Steve: And forgive yourself when you don't handle it well. So I think that's the thing.

Steve: We can never stop learning just by stepping out there and paying attention.

Steve: And life for me, because you know my brain works weird, I think in poetry and metaphor.

Steve: So I'm constantly learning.

Steve: And when I make a mistake, I laugh about it. Usually write it into the book

Steve: how I screw it up and move on.

Steve: Nothing and no one has any power over us unless we give it to them.

Steve: And so i'm not afraid to make mistakes i want to learn yeah.

Marvin: It's interesting you know it makes me think too steve like one of the things

Marvin: that attracts me to fly fishing is it's not consistently solvable right.

Steve: No and.

Marvin: That's one of the allures because i think if you know i quote figured it out

Marvin: it would have bored me ages ago and i.

Steve: Would have maybe.

Marvin: Become a golfer god forbid.

Steve: Been in that yeah i i would still take you as you as you came but i just we

Steve: wouldn't have as much to talk about because uh i grew up around golf courses

Steve: part of my life and i was constantly being chased off of them because you know

Steve: what i was doing that golf thing i was fishing in ponds,

Steve: uh illegally it was chasing me out of their ponds uh yeah so anyway i love our

Steve: conversation that I really appreciate that you've shared this time with me.

Marvin: Oh, it's been tremendous fun. And I know you've got some speaking engagements.

Marvin: I know you said just locally, but you've got some travel coming up too.

Steve: I do um i have some great travel coming up i'll be spending some time down in patagonia,

Steve: uh in various parts of patagonia if it all comes together i'll be in both northern

Steve: and southern patagonia and argentina and then various areas around argentina

Steve: and piranha river going after golden dorado and a few other undisclosed places

Steve: and i'll be spending some time I'm in Peche, Mexico soon,

Steve: going after tarpon.

Steve: But you know what I'm really going after, of course, is lessons from the river and the ocean.

Steve: So, yes, I've got some good travel coming up.

Steve: I'm also going to be going out to Portugal.

Steve: And all these things are going to connect into me sharing with those people

Steve: who I so deeply appreciate that read my work.

Steve: That I'll be sharing these stories with them and the lessons that I learned

Steve: along the way. That's what I do.

Steve: I learn new things and I say, here, this is for you. Take it.

Steve: You're never going to learn a fancy way to cast from me or a special new knot,

Steve: but you're going to learn a whole lot of ways to attach better things to your

Steve: life and let go of others.

Marvin: Yeah. And I will drop a link. I know that Amazon and I imagine other,

Marvin: like Barnes & Nobles and others, There's had the presale links up for your last

Marvin: in the casting series, which I guess you told me was going to come out officially

Marvin: on Labor Day weekend. Is that right?

Steve: It's September 3rd. It's on preorder now. I'm grateful to say that it's been

Steve: doing well in preorder right now.

Steve: And the reason I care about that, by the way, is you know I don't do this because

Steve: you don't become a writer for money.

Steve: So it's because I want people to read these stories. I want people to get something out of it.

Steve: It makes me so happy to get letters from people saying, I just love this book

Steve: or I love this essay in Fly Fisherman. It really helped me.

Steve: So, yeah, it comes out the third. It is available on all major booksellers like Amazon.

Steve: It's probably one of the easiest ones, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, Indie Books.

Steve: But I also want to share that if they want a signed copy, the way to get signed

Steve: copies is through my friend BobWhiteStudio.com.

Steve: Um, he is taking pre-orders for signed copies and that's the only place I do

Steve: currently sell signed copies through.

Marvin: I got it. And do you have any, do you have any promotion in the schedule?

Marvin: Uh, or is it a little early yet?

Steve: Oh, right now, the only things I've got coming up are pretty local here,

Steve: so I don't know how much it'd matter to your listeners rather than me traveling

Steve: around the country because if I do, it's because I'm traveling for other reasons

Steve: and I'm able to do those things.

Steve: But they can always look on my website, stevebromeroesauthor.com,

Steve: and whenever I have something like I'm traveling to Arizona or Colorado or wherever

Steve: and I'm going to be at a local bookstore or something, I always post it up there. Yeah.

Marvin: And I will drop all that stuff in the show notes. And I also know that you are

Marvin: active-ish on Instagram and I'm probably more active on Facebook, right?

Steve: Right. Both. Instagram is Steve Ramirez, author.

Steve: And same thing with Facebook, Steve Ramirez, author. And you're welcome to connect

Steve: with me on that, as long as you're a real person and a nice person.

Steve: Um and uh so and i i write on both of them and keep people connected with me

Steve: but also the reason you mentioned facebook is because that's where i actually

Steve: write some little mini essays that people seem to like and i just put them put them up there yeah.

Marvin: And uh when you were talking about why um book sales were important to you that's

Marvin: the topic for our next conversation we'll uh We'll spend an hour or so talking

Marvin: about the intersection of commerce and art. Beautiful.

Marvin: Well, Steve, I super appreciate you carving a little bit of time this evening

Marvin: out and spending it with me.

Steve: My pleasure. Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you. I look forward to it, and I really enjoyed it.

Marvin: Take care.

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