S1, Ep 9: VFFWF Bonus Episode: Cory Routh of Ruthless Outdoor Adventures

Marvin Cash (00:04-00:30): Folks, welcome to another episode of The Articulate Fly. I'm here with Cory Routh from Ruthless Outdoor Adventures. Welcome to the show, Cory.

Cory Routh (00:30-01:08): Thanks man, good to be here. And we're sponsored by the Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Festival. We're actually here - if you hear that gurgle, it's the crowd in the background. It's late in the afternoon on the first day and we're at the Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Festival. Hope you guys came out today, came by the booth, saw Cory, saw me. Cory's over in the Green Top booth.

Cory, my first question I always ask all my guests is what's your earliest fly fishing memory?

Cory Routh (00:30-01:08): My earliest fly fishing memory corresponds with when I was an intern down at Lake Mattamuskeet with the Fish and Wildlife Service. I saw a guy throwing fly poppers for bass down there and wandered over to him and asked him what he was doing. He caught a fish as he was talking to me and clearly didn't have any time to talk to me - he put me off, but the fishing didn't.

So I immediately went to the nearest Bass Pro Shop, which was back down in Charlotte Concord, I think, and bought my first St. Croix fly rod. That's what started it for me.

Marvin Cash (01:08-01:16): That's pretty unusual. Most people do the bait casting, spinning stuff first and then get the fly rod, so you have sort of a backwards progression getting into the sport.

Cory Routh (01:17-01:28): Yeah, never. It stays that way now too. I tend to lean towards a fly more than a baitcaster even now. If I had an infinite number of days to fish every year, I would be more open to other stuff, but if I can only fish like 20 days a year, I'm always going to fly fish.

Marvin Cash (01:28-01:39): Absolutely. So tell me a little bit about who your mentors were in the sport.

Cory Routh (01:39-02:37): I came into the sport later in my life - like I said, I was in college. One of my mentors is actually, I dare to say it, Bo here at the fly fishing show. Not because he taught me a lot of things, but Bo actually exposed me to a lot of people in the industry. It was Bo that first got me in front of Lefty Kreh to actually meet Lefty Kreh.

The funny thing is that I have never cast with Lefty Kreh. But I was exposed to several other fly anglers, and Ed Jaworowski - I have cast with him quite a bit. Ed was probably one of the first formal fly casting lessons I ever had, but I was self-taught up to that point.

I read a lot of books because we really didn't have internet. I was just starting to have computers and stuff like that, so we were before the internet craze. You actually had to read a book or watch a VHS tape. I think I had a couple of Lefty's VHS tapes, so I taught myself.

Marvin Cash (02:38-02:52): Yeah, we're similar vintage then if we're talking about VHS tapes. I know you've been incredibly active in kayak fly fishing. When did you get the kayak bug? Did you get the kayak bug separately and then the fishing bug came after that?

Cory Routh (02:52-04:08): No, it's funny. I always go back to Lake Mattamuskeet, which had a lot to do with my career choices, my sporting choices and everything. While I was at an internship with Mattamuskeet, there was a kayak rental place there and they had the Ocean Kayaks, the sit-on-tops. It was one of the first places to use these sit-on-tops because they actually rented kayaks at different places like Ocracoke Adventures down in Ocracoke.

So they had all these sit-on-top kayaks, and there was a couple of them sitting around. I finally managed to find the owner and said, "Hey, can I run some of these tours for you after I'm off work?" Because we started at 7 o'clock and we're done at 3 o'clock, so it still gave me plenty of time to make a little hustle doing kayak tours.

So I got access to the kayaks, and of course, I had my fly rod. I was like, wading this place is not fun because there's a lot of cottonmouths there too - kind of like Back Bay. Pretty snaky place. I've been there. It is snaky.

So I jumped on an Ocean Kayak, which actually was touted as a fishing kayak through Ocean Kayaks. It was called the Scupper Pro TW. They actually put the little whale on the back so you can put your crate behind you. That was actually the boat that started everything in kayak fishing. So started there. That was about '97.

Marvin Cash (04:08-04:20): Wow, that's cool. So help our listeners understand what makes a kayak such an efficient, effective fishing tool.

Cory Routh (04:20-05:05): Well, the first thing is that you don't have to cast as far from a kayak because you sneak up to the fish. You're so stealthy that they almost - you almost get too close to the fish to cast to them. You're usually just diddling the fly in front of them because they don't know you're there. That goes in saltwater, freshwater, anywhere. The kayak is just such an efficient tool for fly fishing.

The other thing is that because you can get closer, you don't have to be a champion caster. So standing up and throwing a lot of line is not an ideal situation, whereas when you're on a kayak, the ideal situation is you can see the fish within 20 or 30 feet. He doesn't know you're there. Short, accurate casts. Don't have a lot of line down in your boat, so you don't have to worry about throwing knots through your guides and all that stuff.

Marvin Cash (05:05-05:25): I find kayak fishing really intimidating because it's a totally new level of gear - boats, racks, systems - and then there's gear that you don't want to have fall out of the boat. What advice would you give someone about how to break into it, not break the bank and kind of get their feet wet and feel good about what they're doing?

Cory Routh (05:25-06:15): Well, the first thing you do is - when I started there was one or two boats that were fishing kayaks. As of 2018, there's probably 200-some fishing kayaks. So my best advice I could give you is go to your retailers that sell boats and try the boats out. Look at everything. Take your fly rod with you and see if that works out for you, if you can cast from that, because boats are like people - different people are going to work in different types of boats.

Take advantage of the knowledge that your retailers have, or join a club. The clubs are always a good place to learn, to get around people. Also, these people are always selling their kayaks to get the new, better kayak, so it's also a place that you can get gear that's already been rigged out to the most efficiency for whatever fishing they're doing.

Marvin Cash (06:15-06:19): So you were doing your outings and kayaks when you were in school. When did you get the guiding bug and know that you really wanted to guide?

Cory Routh (06:19-07:27): Well, it was kind of the same thing. I had worked for the Virginia Marine Resource Commission - my background is in marine biology. That's what I went to school for. But I was looking to make some extra money and there was nobody else doing it. I absolutely came in at a time that the iron was very hot and I hit it, and it just worked out for me.

It almost got to the point where I was too busy for it not to affect my real job. So I had to pace it out a little bit. That's why I actually went over from conventional to fly only, and that made my clientele a little bit thinner. So it made it a little more manageable with my day job.

Marvin Cash (07:27-07:38): Gotcha. So you started Ruthless and it's like a full part-time job as you could possibly have. It's probably just as many hours as goes into my full-time job. How many days do you guide?

Cory Routh (07:38-08:08): It really varies with the type of year we have. This year, this summer was very wet summer and rain and wind and cloudy water really doesn't work that well for kayak fishing guides. But a good season for me in the summertime would be a hundred people.

Marvin Cash (07:27-07:38): Wow, that's pretty good. I know 2019 is a big year, so you're still doing outdoor education but you're not doing the guide trips.

Cory Routh (07:38-08:08): Yeah, I've slowed down. My focus has always been education and teaching people. That goes back to my book - it was put out to teach people about kayak fishing, the new people. So if someone was wanting to go catch trophy redfish on a kayak, I was not the guide for that person. But somebody that had kids that want to get into kayak fishing, or they want to get their feet wet, that was my clientele and it worked for me. There are always people looking to learn how to do that. I've always wanted to share information, so that's what I like to do.

Marvin Cash (08:08-08:19): Yeah, it's funny. I ask all of my guide interview folks - what's the biggest misconception you think people have about fly fishing guides and the fishing guide life?

Cory Routh (08:19-09:02): That it's not a lot of work, and it is a lot of work. As a kayak fishing guide, I have another facet that's added to the whole part about guiding - on a boat, anybody can stand on a boat, but when you add kayaking and fly fishing together, I've had people that have done neither charter me. So it became a kayaking and a fly fishing instructional trip, not just one or the other.

I think the biggest misconception is that we've got this really easy guide life, and it is - I come home tired. I'm wore out. I have to put the boats in the water before the trip. I have to take the boats out of the water after the trip. So when the fishing trip's over, my day is not quite over yet.

Marvin Cash (09:02-09:06): You got two or three hours left - lunches for the next day, washing boats, tying flies.

Cory Routh (09:06-09:07): Exactly.

Marvin Cash (09:07-09:12): So for folks that haven't met you before, talk about where you guide and what you offer at Ruthless Outdoor.

Cory Routh (09:12-09:44): My trips, I concentrate on the Virginia Beach area. Nice thing about Virginia Beach is we have fresh and saltwater available to us. We have Back Bay, which was a world-class bass fishery and starting to get back to that point again. And then as far as saltwater, we have Lynn Haven and Rudee Inlets, which are great redfish, speckled trout, striped bass fisheries. They all have lots of shallow water that works really well with the kayak. You don't have to worry about boats coming up on a flat on you because it's too shallow for them. But that's my areas.

Marvin Cash (09:44-09:50): Interesting. I saw your blog post. You've got a lot of stuff going on in 2019. You just joined Seigler, right?

Cory Routh (09:50-09:52): You're on their R&D marketing team.

Marvin Cash (09:52-09:53): Tell us a little bit about what you're doing for them.

Cory Routh (09:54-10:29): Well, just now I'm just trying to integrate myself into the process. I'm trying to learn everything I can about what we call the backside, where the actual machining takes place and putting the reels together. I want to know everything from a block of aluminum to the final product. I want to know what that involves.

Then Wes has pulled me in to what we call on the front side to do the marketing. I'll do final QA/QC on the reels and stuff. It's a relationship that's just starting right now, but we're looking at in the future, it's going to become a, probably become a career.

Marvin Cash (10:29-10:38): That's good. So did you originally find Wes and see the reels because you were on the pro staff and were fishing with them, or did you guys meet at a festival and you're like, "We should work together"?

Cory Routh (10:39-12:26): You'll eventually get to talk to Wes about it because he'll elaborate more. He kind of picked me, which is an honor because I've known Wes for a long time. I followed him through the progression, and then when he started doing the fly reel, I really took interest in it. But actually his interest, or our relationship, really got strong last year at the festival here after they showed the Back Bay movie.

He was like, "Your attention to detail and just the way you are with people and all that - that's what I need in my company." So we've gone from there. It's still part-time for me - like I said, I'm in my 22nd year doing conservation work for the state. I work for Department of Environmental Quality. I actually run boats for that agency, so I'm on the water three to four days a week with my job all over eastern Virginia.

So I see a lot of water, see a lot of places I can go back and fish. But you can't tell the DEQ people that, right? But they enjoy having me there and I like everything I do.

Marvin Cash (12:26-12:37): That's very cool. Who are Seigler Reels for?

Cory Routh (12:37-15:25): Seigler Reels - we don't compromise on the quality and the value of the reel. This reel is designed to go all over the world and never fail the angler. It's designed for people that are fishing big fish on light lines. It's designed to preserve your line strength and make the reel take all the strength.

Our reel has a lever drag system versus a twist drag or a knob, so it allows us to do a little bit extra to make the fight easier and to put everything in the reel. It can handle everything. The reel was born in the Seychelles catching GTs.

Marvin Cash (12:26-12:37): Well, you gotta have serious gear to do that. That is the baddest fish that swims in the water, there's no doubt about that. Tell me a little bit about maybe the engineering differences - how are Seigler Reels different than like Lamson's or Ross's? I'm not badmouthing any brand, but just to understand what makes them different.

Cory Routh (12:37-15:25): I think that our simplicity, but our strength - keep it simple. That mentality is what makes our reels. And the fact that our reels are handmade in Virginia completely. There's very little in there that wasn't made in-house in Virginia Beach. That's pretty fantastic.

By six people right now. We're a small company. Me and Wes are currently the oldest two people in the company. So there's a lot of possibility to move up and have people grow with the equipment and all that. I can't speak for other manufacturing companies, but I can tell you we use the best and we have some of the best people doing it.

Marvin Cash (15:25-15:34): That's great. And where can anglers find Seigler Reels?

Cory Routh (15:34-16:45): We're slowly starting to branch out to our dealerships locally. We have Green Top as a dealer for us. You can go to our website, go to the Seigler website, and there should be a dealer list on there, or you can buy direct from Seigler.

Marvin Cash (15:25-15:34): Fantastic. I know you're a man of many talents, and I know you're into photography and videography. When did you get that bug?

Cory Routh (15:34-16:45): I've always enjoyed taking pictures. I've had cameras forever, but as far as the film production, that just happened in the last couple of years when I realized that people like Lefty Kreh will not be with us. We want to preserve that. So my focus has been to find these guys with all this extensive knowledge and get that knowledge in a place that would never go away. It would never die.

We tried it with Back Bay. It was just an idea, and it was one of those things that everything fell into place with it, with the exception of production day. We had some bump-ups on the actual day we shot, but we shot all our fishing in two days.

Marvin Cash (15:25-15:34): Wow, that's pretty incredible. And what was the biggest challenge shooting Back Bay?

Cory Routh (15:34-16:45): Getting the fish to bite. Day one of videoing, we were hurting. We had all kinds of things. We got started late. The bite - we caught no fish the first day of filming. It was more about getting mobilized anyway. So we just wanted to get an idea of what was going on. We're like, "Yeah, we're supposed to be promoting this really good fishery and we can't find any fish."

Then day two, we finally got an earlier start. We got the timing a little bit better. It was literally first 15 minutes, we had most of our fishing video done. We caught that many bass. It was just a morning bite. We need to get on a morning bite. So it fell through. It fell into place and became what it is now.

We didn't expect to get an award for it. We actually got an award from the Drake Magazine for their conservation film award. So it was nice to go up against some really heavy hitters - really massively produced, beautiful films. We did it with cheap cameras and kayaks.

Marvin Cash (15:25-15:34): Isn't that crazy? And what was the idea? I know you fished there, but what made you say we really need to work on Back Bay? Was it the Lefty and Walt and those guys, or was it the fishery?

Cory Routh (15:34-16:45): It was a little bit of everything because it was a fishery that definitely needed to be looked at. There was a problem there that they figured out and the fishery was starting to come back. So we wanted to know what went wrong. The people that know what went wrong was the people that fished there.

Really didn't know that Lefty had fished there until Walt said something about Lefty filming an episode of Worldwide Angler. Lefty said - Walt said he made sure that he was not going to be anywhere around Knott's Island when they were filming that. He didn't want nobody to see his spots.

But just knowing that there was a failure and there's a recovery effort, it was nice to be able to document that, preserve that history as well at the same time. It was just a neat, simple idea. I got Mike Smith from Flymen Fishing Company. I was like, "Hey, let's do this." The funny thing is that they were like, "For this to happen, you need to get Lefty. We want Lefty on film."

I went to Lefty at the Two Fly two or three years ago, asked him if he'd give me an interview. He was like, "Yeah, I'm coming to Chesapeake. I'll give you an interview. If those people are okay, would you spend time with me?" So I was like, "Yeah, no problem. Twenty or 30 minutes." Lefty sat down with me for an hour and a half and talked about Back Bay.

Marvin Cash (16:46-16:47): That's pretty incredible.

Cory Routh (16:47-17:10): Once he was on video, it was a done deal. Then I got Walt. I'll go back to your challenge - there was another challenge, and Walt Carey was a challenge. Walt Carey did not want to sign the release to give us his video. Thank God, Bo wrote him a letter and talked him into it. So we finally got Walt on there. With Lefty and Walt on there, all we had to do was go fishing and catch some fish on kayaks. And it was in the can.

Marvin Cash (17:10-17:27): Yeah, and it's a great film. It's interesting too, because video is becoming so prominent in the sport. Can you give some words of encouragement for people that want to make movies? Because you're sitting there saying, "Well, we didn't have 4K RED cameras and all that kind of stuff." Talk a little bit about your equipment and what people can do to get their feet wet.

Cory Routh (17:27-18:06): Well, the GoPros - there's a lot of people on YouTube now making feature quality videos. You see a lot of that and it tends to drown out everything else. But I think that the best advice I can give somebody is to tell a story or find a human aspect to that fishery. That's what Back Bay was. I found three humans that are involved in that fishery that were willing to tell a story, and everything came together.

So that's what I like to tell people - don't worry so much about the eye candy and the drone footage and all that. It's good stuff, but people like to hear a story.

Marvin Cash (18:07-18:14): Yeah, I'm getting a little tired of the drone stuff. It's in every movie. Not to knock it, it's useful, but I don't need to see it in every single film.

Cory Routh (18:14-18:28): Well, you have action and dubstep music films, and then you got people that tell stories. I'm more leaning towards the stories. I think if you can learn from something, it's gold for everybody.

Marvin Cash (18:28-18:38): I know you shifted to work on more production, video production work in 2019. So can you tell us any projects you're working on?

Cory Routh (18:38-19:16): Yeah, our next project is that Walt Carey keeps wanting me to take him fishing on Back Bay around Knott's Island, so my next film will be about Walt. So it'll be kind of a part two to Back Bay, but it will actually be - I have interview that I didn't use that I can, I will use in a new film with Walt. But we're also going to go back to his spots and fish his spots with modern equipment. We're going to go with the flat skiff versus going in float tubes and wading and stuff like he did when he was young. But that's the next project.

Then I have a couple of other projects with Seigler - we're going to go after the big red drum on the Eastern Shore.

Marvin Cash (19:16-19:25): Very good. Well, I appreciate you spending some time with me. I know we've got a snowstorm coming in. Everybody wants to get home. Where can people find you? Where can they find Ruthless Outdoor Adventures?

Cory Routh (19:25-19:54): I have social media on Instagram and Facebook. Cory Ruthless Routh is my Instagram. And then the best thing to get to me is the website, RuthlessOutdoorAdventures.com. What about at Seigler Reels? Is that a place to find you there? We're going to be so busy. It might be tough to find me, but once we get integrated a little bit more with them, I'll be a little more fixture there. I'm going to all the shows with them this year.

Marvin Cash (19:55-20:05): Gotcha. Well, perfect. Well, I appreciate you spending time with me and everybody. Hope you enjoyed this episode. If you liked it, I'd like you to subscribe. Certainly give me a review in iTunes. Everybody have a great afternoon and tight lines. Thanks again, Cory.

Cory Routh (19:55-20:05): Thank you. Great to be here. Awesome. Everybody take care.