Fly Fisherman's Loop to Loop Podcast, Season 1, Episode 16: Mike Dawes

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Mike Dawes is the managing partner of Westbank Anglers in Wilson, Wyoming near the town of Jackson, Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Dawes has guided for decades, and fly fished the world for species ranging from trout to exotic saltwater fish such as barracuda. He is well-known for his dedication to permit fishing and conservation. Having won multiple permit tournaments, including the Del Brown Permit Tournament and the March Merkin, Dawes sheds light on what it takes to be a permit angler and some strange behaviors. He is also an active board member of the South Fork Initiative of the Henry’s Fork Foundation, which conserves and protects the native cutthroat trout in the Snake River. He is also a part of Fish Camp, a collective of fly-fishing educational resources for beginning anglers to advanced.

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Truncated transcript: 

00:00:03.000 --> 00:01:05.880: Hi, I'm Ross Purnell, editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman magazine. Welcome to Loop to Loop. It's a show where we make deeper connections with the people behind the magazine. Our sponsors today are Patagonia. Check out their new line of Swiftcurrent Waders. They have two models, Expedition and Traverse. They're both available as zip front. Both have been redesigned and reseamed so that they're not only more durable and more comfortable, they're easier to repair. If you do spring a leak, you can get 'em fixed quickly and easily. And I love the way they work with the new line of Stealth Switch Packs. The packs, they've got this cool method of clipping the packs onto your suspenders or wearing it on your wader belt. Or you can change 'em into a hip pack or a, or a sling pack. They're very versatile and flexible.

00:01:05.880  --> 00:01:23.040: We're also sponsored today by G. Loomis, American-made rods made in Woodland, Washington. I've been using them since Steve Rajeff I got me started on them 20 years ago. And today I use Asquith, NRX+ and IMX Pro rods for different situations, different species, and they're fantastic rods. So check 'em out.

00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:48.420: If you enjoy this podcast, you can support our sponsors. And you can support us by subscribing to Fly Fisherman magazine. Please support our sponsors, and you can support us by subscribing to the magazine. It's quick and easy. Go to flyfisherman.com. There's a little subscribe button in the top right-hand corner, and you can subscribe to the leading magazine of fly fishing. You can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @flyfishermanmagazine, on Facebook @flyfisherman. And hopefully you are watching this podcast in its YouTube format on our YouTube channel @flyfisherman magazine.

00:02:03.390 --> 00:02:32.580: Our guest today is Mike Dawes, managing partner of Westbank Anglers, and we have the great privilege of being here in his fly shop today. We actually took the, took the show on the road, traveled to Jackson, Wyoming, and we are filming today from a pretty amazing fly shop right on the Snake River. So usually I say thank you to our guest. Yep. But I'm your guest. Thank you for hosting us.

00:02:32.580 --> 00:03:05.170: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's a pretty, pretty cool spot. What, what's your setup here? Yeah, lucky to, lucky to be here, right? I mean, I think things change. Everything changes, but town's pretty busy right now. But set up here is, you know, the last piece of commercial property on the way to the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. So it's a pretty lucky spot to be, you know, guide service, travel service, and full retail shop.

00:03:05.170 --> 00:03:23.560: Right, right, right behind you. So, so you got the skiing right there. Fishing, Snake River right there. Yeah. Some good mountain biking up there too. Mountain biking's pretty rad. Yeah. Elk hunting. Yeah, it's some, you know, there's some graphs humming up there too. Not a bad place to be. Yeah. But you didn't start out here…