S7, Ep 79: Building Bridges: Community and Content Creation in Fly Fishing with Spencer Durrant

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Spencer Durrant - Director of Content at Ventures Fly Co, News and Gear Editor at Flylords (Wyoming)

In this episode: Content creator Spencer Durrant shares strategies for building authentic fly fishing communities through podcast-driven marketing and trust-based customer relationships. Topics include community building philosophies, podcast production workflows and authentic gear reviewing practices.

Key fishing techniques covered: • Trust-first marketing approach • Consistent content delivery strategies • Community engagement through Q&A formats • Authentic gear review methodologies • Podcast-driven customer acquisition

Location focus: Wyoming (near Yellowstone), general fly fishing waters

Target species: General trout fishing focus

Equipment discussed: Various fly fishing gear for Flylords reviews, podcast production equipment, Winston fly rods

Key questions answered: • How to build trust with fly fishing audiences through content? • What makes podcast marketing more effective than traditional ads? • How to balance authenticity with business goals in content creation?

Best for: Intermediate to advanced anglers interested in content creation, community building and fly fishing business strategies

Marvin Cash00:00:04

Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, Spencer Durrant returns to the podcast.Spencer updates us on his new gigs with Flylords and Ventures Fly Co, and we discuss building authentic communities and fly fishing. I think you're really going to enjoy this one, but before we get to interview, just a couple of housekeeping items.If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out and a shout out to our sponsor. Trout Routes.I've known the team at Trout Routes almost before there was a team at Trout Routes. We all know streams are getting crowded and chances are you're not the only one at your local access point.Get away from the crowds and busy gravel lots by using Trout Routes Pro.With over 350,000 access points mapped across 50,000 trout streams and much more, Trout Routes has all the data you need to help you find angling opportunities that others will overlook. Up your game and download the app today.Use code artfly20 artfly20 all one word for 20% off of your Trout Routes Pro membership at maps.troutroutes.com now on to our interview. Will Spencer, welcome back to the Articulate Fly.

Spencer Durrant00:01:20

Hey, thanks, Marvin. It's good to be back here.

Marvin Cash00:01:22

Yeah, I was shocked.I think I looked at the date when I was doing research for the questions and it's been almost four years since you've been on the podcast, which kind of blows my mind. And we were talking before we started recording.I think the last time we were together in the same place was probably the last AFTA show in Salt Lake City. Right. Kind of slightly on the other side of COVID But to say that there's been a fair amount of water under the bridge for you is an understatement.You want to catch everybody up?

Spencer Durrant00:01:50

Yeah. Shoot. I didn't realize it had been that long. That's. Oh yeah, that has been a while now I'm thinking about it. Yeah, we, my wife and I moved.We now live up kind of by Yellowstone still in Wyoming. But we're up by Yellowstone now, so. But I'm far enough away that the tourists aren't too bad. Nobody's trying to pet buffalo near me. So I.We got that going for us. And then. Yeah, I was.Shoot, I was still teaching high school last time we talked as the day job because, you know, fly fishing doesn't always pay well enough for you to be full time in the industry. So I was teaching high school for a while, but I quit that. What is it, 2025? When did I quit? 2024.Because I ended up having an opportunity to go full time with Ventures Flyco, where I'm the director of content. So I'm helping to run our media side of the company. I do our podcast every week, the Untangled Podcast.And then we've got all our YouTube content that we're pushing out. Beginner fly fishing masterclass, Fly selection masterclass, Fly tying Masterclass. And we're working.In fact, just today I was editing the beginner nymphing masterclass. So we've got a lot of content like that coming out and. Oh, shoot. What else? Wife and I just had a baby in June. No, she was born in May.She was due in June. I keep getting it mixed up. She was due in June, but she came early. So I've got these two dates in my head that I can never keep.

Spencer Durrant00:03:31

Straight.

Spencer Durrant00:03:34

But that's the first kid for us, and we're just kind of barely surviving. So I think that catches us up pretty well, though I can't think anything else too major that's happened.

Marvin Cash00:03:45

Yeah, but you're not with Mid Current anymore, and you're officially cool because you're a member of the Flylords. I mean, you didn't tell people that.

Spencer Durrant00:03:51

Well, I forgot.Yeah, no, I was with Mid Current for five years, and then it was just one of those instances where it was just time to move on, time to look for something a little bit different. Because at Mid Current, I was doing Daily news every single day.Saturdays and Sundays, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, every day for five years and tons of fun. I got to meet a lot of folks, make some good relationships in the industry, but after a while, it kind of wears on you doing daily stuff.And I wanted to step away from the daily grind a little bit. And Flylords is a really awesome opportunity. Came along at the right time and I get to rant about whatever I want over there now. So they.They get to publish my musings that we. We pretend are worth reading. And I still do the gear reviews over there as well. So I'm.I'm the news and Gear editor is my official title over there at flylords.

Marvin Cash00:04:58

Very, very cool. Yeah, it's an interesting thing, right? Because, I mean, you know, you were super nice to me because I just reached out.I mean, this is how we met everybody as I was starting the podcast and I was like, hey, you know, if this is helpful to Your viewers share my links.And so we kind of developed a relationship by me just flipping you links to my RSS feed when I thought I had something that was halfway decent for you to share.

Spencer Durrant00:05:17

Right.

Spencer Durrant00:05:18

Yeah. Yeah. And it snowballed, so. Yeah. Which is really good.

Marvin Cash00:05:24

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. We will probably, by Labor Day, have a thousand episodes.

Spencer Durrant00:05:29

Oh, wow.

Marvin Cash00:05:30

So I feel your pain on the, like, doing stuff every day because, you know, putting out two or three interviews a month and then probably two to three pieces of short content a week. It's tiring.

Spencer Durrant00:05:40

It's a lot. Yeah. It wears you out more than you'd think. And I don't think. In fact, I don't think. I know. Folks don't understand the creative drain.They just think, oh, you're making content all day. That's fun and easy. It. That's fun and easy if you want your content to suck. But it's.It's a lot of hard work when you're trying to make content that's actually going to help some people and isn't just something for them to waste the time with while they're sitting on the toilet.

Marvin Cash00:06:15

Yeah. It's kind of funny.I mean, I would say, you know, I haven't done any kind of official time benchmarking in a while, but I would say pretty easy, you know, for an interview on the Articulate Fly to take, you know, 12 to 15 hours to produce soup to nuts.

Spencer Durrant00:06:29

Right.

Marvin Cash00:06:31

You know, by the time, you know, and you probably do this in a different way for Untangled. We'll talk about in a minute. But, you know, if you start out and you need to do a little bit of research.

Spencer Durrant00:06:39

Right.

Marvin Cash00:06:40

You know, like, I try to not ask people the same questions that got asked on another podcast last week.

Spencer Durrant00:06:46

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:06:46

And then you want a story arc and then you, you know, you record and then you want to edit and, you know, load the CMS and do all the promotion. It's not hard to spend, you know, a dozen hours on an hour, hour and a half long interview, for sure.

Spencer Durrant00:07:00

Yeah, no, it's not. It's. I mean, shoot, on a good week, I can put an episode of Untangled out in two days. That's two full work days.So usually it takes me two and a half, three, just to get everything dialed right the way that I want it. So. And it's a short show. It's only usually 45 minutes to an hour, and it's once a week. So, you know, I'm over here fretting over it and You're.You're putting out two or three times more than I am. So.

Marvin Cash00:07:37

Yeah, I don't know. It's. It's. I mean, it's an interesting thing. I. I love it. I've met great people just like you have.But, you know, it's kind of funny because, you know, we always kind of bump in. We always are kind of talk kind of. Our conversations almost always end up kind of in the same place.And, you know, folks, we're going to kind of take a deep dive on, you know, community building around brands.And so I think kind of an interesting thing, right, is, you know, you mentioned the Untangled podcast, and you have a really unique format, and it's actually a really unique use case, and I was kind of curious if you could kind of, you know, let folks know, you know, what it is, where to find it, the general format and all that kind of good stuff.

Spencer Durrant00:08:13

Yeah. So Untangled, the full name is Untangled Fly Fishing for Everyone. And I say that not trying to sound sarcastic, but.But actually meaning it where the. The idea was, how do we. How do we make this stuff approachable? How do we.How do we take this from a sport that doesn't make any sense, a sport that's incredibly overwhelming to something that is actually really simple?Because at the end of the day, and some folks get prickly when I say this, but fly fishing ain't all that hard, and it really isn't all that complicated either. Your. Your whole job is put a fly in front of a fish and make it look real. However you choose to do that is up to you. But that's your job.Whether you're fishing for trout or you're fishing for tarpon, you got to put that fly in front of them and make it look like something they want to eat. And it's really that simple. You boil it down, you strip all the other junk away from it, and it's that simple.And that's where Untangled came from, was how do we make this simple? How do we make this approachable? So we started out with just purely a Q and A driven show.So we'd get questions, I'd answer them, and that was the show.And it's evolved now to where I take a topic once or I take a top one main topic, whether it's from a question that a listener sent in or it's something that I've noticed folks talking about, I take that topic and we go ahead and do a deep dive onto that, and then from there, we have a Q and a section of the show. And then we end with a story from someone out in the audience, someone who's been out there fishing.They send in their, their live real life moment is what we call it. And we get to connect with folks out there in the community who are, who are fishing. So. And we're on all the, all the major podcast platforms.We're on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. Anywhere you find your podcast, you'll find untangled.

Marvin Cash00:10:26

Yeah. And I'll drop links to all that stuff in the show notes.And so is it predominantly, you know, you're getting feedback from the audience and it's just you, or do you sometimes bring guests on?

Spencer Durrant00:10:35

We tried guests for a little bit. My issue is just always audio quality. I want to get that dialed. And it's just kind of hard with phone call interviews a lot of the times and then.But yeah, it's, it's almost all completely user driven. Even the weeks where I mean I. The monologue, the opening part of the show is not directly tied to a question.Like I didn't get an email from someone that week. It's still spurred by a question that we've received.I've got over 600 questions just this year from folks, so there's no shortage of topics to dive into.

Marvin Cash00:11:26

Very neat. And so when you prepare, do you outline what you want to talk about or do you do a little bit more official script?Because I know you've got like, you've been an outdoor writer kind of forever, right?

Spencer Durrant00:11:36

Yeah, no, I, I script it. I script it because I want to make sure that I'm explaining it in a way that's simple and makes sense. Because I tried go.I tried doing a few episodes where I just went with more of an outline. Just went off the cuff. And as much as I'd like to be, I'm no, I'm no. What's the word I'm looking for? Savant at broadcasting.So I trip over myself sometimes. I don't always say things the right way. So I've got a lot of the big points written out.The big things that I want to say are written out so that I can articulate them in a way that makes sense to somebody who's never fly fish before, but it's still accessible to someone who's been doing it for a while. And that's important to me to be able to reach both of those people.And if I don't write it out and think it through beforehand, I'm not going to be as effective with how I Communicate it. So it is a script.I'll spend about a day, sometimes day and a half, just putting the script together, thinking through how I want to explain this, examples, trying to remember stories that I can use to illustrate it with. And I don't script the stories out. I'll literally just write, share this story from this river on this day, and I'll just tell the story.You know, I'm not going to script that part out. I don't script out all the jokes. You know, I try and come up with my own jokes in the moment, something I think I'm getting better at, thankfully.And then I, I certainly don't script out all the. The love affair with wings and Diet Coke that are featured in almost every episode either.So that's just all organic, but that's, that's kind of how I put it together.

Spencer Durrant00:13:25

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:13:25

Very neat.And so, you know, the interesting thing is, you know, it's this, this podcast is kind of the linchpin for the community building around Venture Flyco.And I was kind of curious if you could kind of, you know, take us behind the curtain in the land of Oz and talk about kind of, you know, how you kind of came up with, you know, we've got a fly shop, and I, I don't know a lot about ventures if they're, like, predominantly, you know, online.

Spencer Durrant00:13:48

Right.

Marvin Cash00:13:49

And so this is a major part of their outreach, but this is also kind of the springboard to all the video stuff you were talking about doing, too.

Spencer Durrant00:13:55

Yeah. So we're. We're online for now. We'd love to have brick and mortar at some point, but we're, we're still.Still very much in startup mode getting this thing off the ground or. So we're online for now, but yeah, it's. It was really like, why we. We asked ourselves when we.We started getting into wanting to do content and wanting to use that to market ventures, why would people buy from us? Well, the obvious thing is we can try and compete on price, right?And we can try selling flies for 99 cents, but you find out real quick that you're not gonna make a whole lot of money for selling your flies for 99 cents. That's just. You're just really not gonna put money in the bank if that's what you end up doing.So then the, the next natural step is, well, they're gonna, they're gonna buy from us because they trust us. Right? They're. They're going to, they're going to trust us with our money because we've helped them in some way.And so when you look at it from that perspective of business, it's okay, we need to help these people as much as we can. And if you get into it, if you get into it only to make money or only to help people, I don't think you're going to be successful.I think you have to get into it with a little bit of both. With your foot in both worlds there.There's got to be a little bit of altruism on your part in terms of wanting to make things better and wanting to help. In our case, wanting to help anglers begin and learn and figure this stuff out.But then at the same time, we got mortgages to pay, we got fishing trips we want to take, got things we want to do, so we've still got to pay the bills at the same time. So just being realistic with yourself matters a lot when you're. When you're trying to build a community like this. But it really.It seemed to us the best way to build that community and to get folks to come to us and to have our experience. Because at the end of the day, we. We do feel like we're giving the best experience possible to anyone who comes to us.Because we don't just have all the gear they need. We've got all the resources they need to be successful.It's not just, hey, we're gonna sell you this rod and reel in this fly collection, and good luck figuring it out on the water. It's, hey, here's every fly that's in there. Here's what that fly is, here's what that fly does. Here's when you should use that fly.Here's how to use those flies here, how to cast a fly rod. And if you think you can't do it, here's a bunch of stuff from other beginners who've done it, who are in your exact same shoes.And when you can share that with people and show that to people makes it very powerful. And that makes it something that resonates with people.And if you're going to be successful at whatever you do, I don't care what business you're in, if you're going to be successful at anything, you got to figure out how to resonate with folks and connect with folks on some level. Because like I said, if. If you're in it just to make money, people are going to sniff that out real quick.And if you're in it just to be altruistic, well, then you're going to Need a job in six months. So you. There. There's gotta be a little bit of both.

Marvin Cash00:17:30

Yeah, it's interesting too, right? Cause I'm a hu. Like, you know, I'm a big trust guy. And I think the fascinating thing is you're bringing.You're building the trust relationship that people would normally build with the shop rats in their local shop, and you're putting that on the Internet. But the other thing, too, and I mean, I'm kind of biased, right? Because I'm predominantly a podcaster.That's why I think this recurrent audio medium is so powerful, because it gives you this amazing way to build trust in very, very subtle ways.

Spencer Durrant00:17:58

Right.

Marvin Cash00:17:58

Like you talk for a repeated period of time every week and they like you, they don't think you're an idiot, and they start to trust you.

Spencer Durrant00:18:05

Right?

Spencer Durrant00:18:06

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:18:07

And I think that's something that you can't. You can't really shortcut. And I mean, yes, you could do videos and do the same thing, but then you can put out a lot less content.But, you know, it's interesting, right, because to. I see lots of shops doing podcasts, but they don't show up regularly for their audience.And I try to tell them, I was like, you would be better off partnering with someone who's a more regular content producer because you're never going to get the network effect if you're not showing up every week or however often it is to get that payback on that time investment.

Spencer Durrant00:18:39

Yeah, no, 100%. You have to be consistent with it. And, oh, we had a listener, I think it was earlier this year, wrote a. Wrote in, asked a question.But he prefaced this question with something to the effect of, I feel like I know Spencer because I've listened to every episode of the podcast on all my drives, and I think I've listened to him talk more than my wife this year is what he wrote into us.And, you know, marital problems aside, if you're listening to me more than your wife, then I'm sorry, but that was kind of a oh, wow moment for me personally to realize, oh, yeah, you really are. It goes beyond just talking to folks and it's actually building that relationship with them.And it makes sense because if you think about it from the point of view I. I consume quite a few podcasts every week too, of my favorite stuff, and there's one that I. I don't miss any other episodes. I listen to them every single day, and those guys feel like my friends. And when they're gone for break, or whatever.It feels weird because I'm not listening to my buddies talk. Even though I've never met any of them, I. They feel like my friends.It's just kind of weird to be on the other side of that, to be the one making the content that makes other people feel that way. So it takes a little bit of getting used to.

Marvin Cash00:20:11

Yeah, I mean, it's super neat.But I would also say too, and you and I have talked about this in kind of one variety or another, you know, it's really, you know, I would say it's different.It's not like earth shatteringly different because I think they're, you know, there are not a lot of people that are think about it in this kind of deliberate trust way that you and I are talking about it. And then I think there are a lot of people that just don't think about it at all.

Spencer Durrant00:20:33

Right.

Marvin Cash00:20:34

And then I think there are a lot of people that have just made the deal with the devil and they love free stuff and likes on the Internet. What was the kind of light bulb moment for you where you were able to say we're going to do this in a different way?

Spencer Durrant00:20:54

That's a really good question. I think.I think looking at how some of these other shops have been successful and looking at why they were successful was what made me and the rest of the team Adventures realize that we've got to go, we've got to go a slightly different route because originally we were writing a blog and we were just doing written content and thought, yeah, we'll just build our community this way. And that's not a terrible way to go with it, but it's also not the most effective either.You're certainly not going to reach as many people with that as you would with a podcast. And it was really looking at what Tom Rosenbauer does over at Orvis. He's been doing what, 15, 14, 15 years now?He's been doing the Orvis podcast, I think, and then the guys over at Fly Fish Food who consistently put out a ton of pretty high quality fly tying videos. And for a long time that was most of their content was fly tying videos.But are you going to buy your fly tying supplies from the crusty old shop down the street with the, the good old boys club with the stale pot of coffee? Or are you going to buy it from the funny guys on YouTube who don't take it too seriously and show you how to tie all the flies?You know, which one are you going to pick? And I think that Just looking at how they'd manage to have success and how they'd managed to build community, too.Because you think, how many folks buy Orvis rods because of Tom Rosenbauer?

Marvin Cash00:22:47

A lot.

Spencer Durrant00:22:49

Yeah. He's more valuable to that company than probably any other employee there. I don't say that as a slight. Any other employee there.I know a couple of the guys who build the rods over there, and they're fantastic.But you don't sell near as many of those rods without someone like Tom, because people trust Tom, and he's built so many relationships with folks for so many stinking years. And so when you're. When you're looking at, okay, how do we. How do we have success? How do we run a business that's going to be successful?The blueprints there, it's been there. You just have to be willing to look at it or look for it. And that was the aha moment. We realized, you know, the blog's not the way to go.We need to do a podcast. We need to. We need to do something that's a bit more personal, that allows us to have more conversations with people instead of just talking to them.And that was the issue with going with written content on the blog, was it felt like we were talking to them more than we were having a conversation. And now here we are on the pod. I can't tell you I mentioned it earlier, but I.Couple of the running jokes on the podcast are I love Diet Coke and I love buffalo wings. So there's always a can of Diet Coke on the desk when I'm recording the show.And then I always make some joke or reference to me stuffing my face with Buffalo wings. Right. The fish. Fish is going to hit that fly like I hit a plate of Buffalo wings.And being able to inject that little bit of personality into it and have those recurring themes helps.But I'd say probably 60, 70% of our questions that we get into the podcast, someone's chiming in on whether or not Diet Coke's good or what their favorite wing sauce is. So just. Just silly little things like that have built community in ways that I didn't even really anticipate.

Spencer Durrant00:24:48

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:24:48

And it's interesting, right, because once you. I think another shop that does a great job with this is Schultz Outfitters.

Spencer Durrant00:24:54

Right.

Marvin Cash00:24:56

And, you know, in terms of building content and building physical community and kind of reaching out to people and, you know, particularly during the long Michigan winters, they've got great tying stuff. But, you know, once you kind of see kind of this aha moment, it kind of flows downstream into all of your other content, right?

Spencer Durrant00:25:13

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:25:14

Because you just can't use Instagram and other tools the same way, right?

Spencer Durrant00:25:22

No, you can't. You've gotta be authentic and how you're communicating or people are gonna see through it. Especially if you've been authentic in one platform.

Marvin Cash00:25:32

Yeah, it's. I don't know, it's an interesting thing. Is there something kind of.And we'll drill a little bit more into the social media aspect of it, but, you know, is there something kind of, as you like, made the transition from blog to podcast that really kind of surprised you? In addition to kind of the randomness of where the community connections come from.

Spencer Durrant00:25:50

How much, how different it is from just writing.I think was the big thing that surprised me in terms of the medium itself is you think, oh, I write pretty well and I've always been able to talk well. So I thought, oh, it's. I just write my script out and I'll read it and it'll be great.But then you play back and you realize it sounds like you're reading a script. That's not what you want to sound like, especially on this kind of a show.There's some shows where reading the script is what you want it to sound like, but that's not what we wanted this to sound like. I want to be personal. We wanted it to be something that engages with folks.So that was, that was probably the big surprise to me was how much work and effort it takes to sound natural and sound conversational.I think that surprises folks a lot more than they would realize if, you know, folks who've tried to do their own podcast would probably run into that, I would imagine.

Marvin Cash00:26:53

Yeah. Interesting.And so, you know, we've got kind of, you know, I guess, I guess the way I would think about it, we were talking earlier, I think there are people that think about it and obsess about it like we do.

Spencer Durrant00:27:02

Right.

Marvin Cash00:27:03

And I'm not saying that's like we're geniuses or anything. It's just kind of what we obsess about.

Spencer Durrant00:27:07

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:27:07

And then I think they're people that are just kind of doing it it and don't really kind of think about these community building things. They just do it because it's fun, which is fine. And there's kind of a darker side of influencer culture. And it's kind of interesting to me.

Spencer Durrant00:27:20

Right.

Marvin Cash00:27:20

Because I'm a Generation X guy, so I didn't have technology all the time. And so I see it as this great connection tool.But there seem to be so many people that kind of get sucked down this rat hole of hacking people's attention and not, I mean, you have literally in the palm of your hand $1000 supercomputer that can connect you with anyone in the world that likes the same stuff that you do.

Spencer Durrant00:27:43

Right?

Spencer Durrant00:27:44

Yeah, no, it's, it's easy to get sucked into it and it's easy to just, it's easy to just do it for the free stuff more than anything.I mean, one of the big perks of the gear reviews and the writing I do for Flylords is you get to keep a lot of the gear, especially the waiters and boots. I can't resell that stuff. So the soft goods, especially fly rods, it's kind of a toss up whether you get to keep those or not.But you get to build up this nice collection of gear and it's a lot of fun and you can really put, put some good stuff, put a good collection of gear together. And I don't know anybody who gets into this that doesn't enjoy their gear in some way or another.So the chance to get it for free or for a discount or.Oh, you just got to make a video about it there, there's a lot of folks who get seduced by that and, and they're willing to do just about anything for the stuff.But I think the trend's kind of moving away from that because the fluffy gear reviews that you used to see, especially by a lot of fly shops, I don't know if you ever read a lot of fly shop gear reviews, but the fly shops have a vested interest in selling you that product. So why would they write a negative review of that product? Right. You gotta ask yourself that question.So the really fluffy gear reviews I think are on the way out and there's, there's still the cozy relationship or whatever manufacturer is buying 50, 60 grand worth of ad space this year, so. And they've got a new rod coming out. Are you going to say anything negative about it? No, because they just paid your salary for the whole year.So there's still that conflict too.But I, I also think the brands themselves, the manufacturers themselves are more open to the honesty now than maybe they were because folks are just seeing through the, the influencers, the influencers who are just pushing content to get free stuff.And that's something that I've tried really hard to, to do is just to be honest and to walk through the failings of any gear that I'VE got the st. Croix Evos, 9 foot 5 weight. Their new flagship all purpose trout rod. Don't know if you had a chance to fish that yet.It's an interesting stick, but it's got almost no feel like 30ft. Just a very stiff, very sort of unresponsive rod. And I've been pretty open about that and all my reviews about it. It doesn't mean I dislike it.I don't think St. Croix bad company or anything. I just, it's, it's where that rod suffers.Now if you need a rod to chuck hopper dropper rigs or streamers or heavy nymph rigs from the boat, yeah, it's a great ride. But if you need fine dry fly work in close, it's probably not the direction that I would personally go, just it's a little too stiff.But being able to have that conversation and point that out to folks, I think people appreciate that more.So to, to bring it all back, I, I think that darker side of the influencer culture is still there, but I, I think people are finally starting to see through it and there's just, they're just not engaging with it anymore. I mean, it's why you see this on, on a broader scale.If you take a step back and look at all content, not just fly fishing, but if you look at all the content that's popping off on YouTube this year, especially the channels that are seeing the most, most growth and most traction are the smaller channels, the quote unquote ordinary people. Because those are the ones who strike people as more authentic. Because once you get so big, you get really big.You get almost too big for your britches, you lose a little bit of the spark that got you there. And a lot of places run into that problem. A lot of media companies run into that problem.They just try and grow and grow and grow so much and they lose a lot of the sweat equity that made their content great.So you look at these smaller creators who are still putting everything they've got into their content and they're seeing more growth and success than your bigger brands. And I think that holds true for fly fishing on the micro scale.When we zoom in on us is the people who are willing be honest about stuff and to say, hey, Orvis says the Helios is however many, I forget the percent off my head. It's however many percent more accurate than the H3. Okay, how do you measure that? Is it actually that more accurate and doesn't matter.The people were willing to go down that road and actually question, engage with stuff are the people that I, I think are getting rewarded in the fly fishing ecosystem right now. And that will definitely come out on top five to ten years from now.

Marvin Cash00:33:10

Yeah, an interesting thing too. And you're not exactly in this, this situation because you're, for lack of a better word, a captive podcast for a fly shop.

Spencer Durrant00:33:18

Right.

Marvin Cash00:33:19

But the lack of traditional digital media cost per click analysis and podcasting makes it very, very hard when you start to talk to. Because, I mean, I talk to marketing managers and global brand managers at tons of companies all the time to.They feel in their bones what you're saying, but they can't prove it. And so they know that.Well, the way we've always done it is we know exactly if we pay this much for Facebook ads, this is the cost per click and this is the roi. It's a much different calculus because there's not a lot of standardization and there's not a cost per click analog in podcasting.And you can work on that a little bit. But the reality is in podcasting, you have to be huge, like public radio, espn to have the kind of tech to be able to track some of this stuff down.I think some of that is holding back the shift where marketing managers will feel comfortable going to their boss and saying, we're going to do this spend over here in podcasts, because here are all these soft reasons we think it's better. And then their boss says, well, gosh, can you show me the quant? It's a lot harder to do for podcasts.

Spencer Durrant00:34:33

Yeah, it is. There's no doubt about that.But you look at who's successful right now, who's killing it in the space right now in fly fishing is the people that are connecting with the audience. And there's no way to, to step back from that. Look at, look at Sims, for example. They've.They've been going through, they've been going through the ringer up there. And I feel for the guys.I got friends who work for Sims just with all the acquisitions that I think they've been bought by two different companies in the last couple of years, if I'm remembering correctly. But how much audience engagement has Sims done in the last two, three years? Just off the top of your head?

Marvin Cash00:35:19

Not really a lot.

Spencer Durrant00:35:21

No, not, not much. And then look at Squala or look at Grundin's with their new waiters.They've really invested a lot more heavily in community engagement with people with actually trying to get folks to have conversations with Them. And I mean, shoot, look even at a red fly shop out there. Oh, I forget where they're at. They're in Washington, I want to say.But you just look at how great their, their YouTube content is, and they're doing well. You look at a royal treatment, fly fishing there out of, outside of Portland.What Joel Offlette did for so many years with his newsletter, it was the gold standard for a lot of fly shop newsletters, Right? And he's run a very successful fly shop for a long time because he gets it. He's connecting with the people.No newsletter is a little bit different than a podcast or YouTube channel, but it's still not as quantifiable as Facebook ads. Right. So it really just comes down to what. What's the perception that you want of your company?And are you willing to have some things be a little intangible? And if you are, I would love to know, and I wish we could track it.I would love to know how many people have bought something from venturesfico because of the podcast. We can track a lot, but I can't track all of it, so I can't peg an exact dollar number on it. And I would love to know just to. Just for my.Even to satisfy my own curiosity, I would love to know, but I'd love to know from a business perspective too.But I do know for a fact that the connections that we've made with people are worth it because people have stuck around for a long time to buy stuff from us and to continue to come back to us.So I know even without being able to quantify what the podcast has done for us and sales dollars, I know it's worked from a community standpoint because, I mean, shoot. Earlier this year, we were out fishing. I was out with some buddies of mine and we had the boat pulled over.I was re rigging and I was in the back of the boat and this other boat comes drifting through the run. So we were letting them drift and fish the run. And again, I'm in the back of the boat wearing hat and sunglasses.I'm looking down and I'm tying a fly on, and I just hear from the other boat, hey, are you that guy from that podcast? And my buddy in the front of the boat? And I wanted to. I wanted to drown him. But he hollers back, yeah, he is. You want a selfie with him?So, you know, it was, it was nice to meet the fans, but that, that's been happening more and more, where just yesterday, Alex, my business partner, who does the other half of the media side of vfc, he was out getting ice cream in Park City, Utah, and ran into a fan of the show at the ice cream parlor. So, yeah, that's not quantifiable in sales dollars, but that's quantifiable in actual. I met this person, I talked to this person.I had a conversation with this person.And when they need flies, when they need a starter pack, when they need a new rod or reel or whatever it is, are they going to go down the street to Sportsman's Warehouse or Cabela's? Are they going to come to us? So if you're.If you're willing to take that risk of having a few intangibles, you can have those human moments that actually mean something that are going to do more for your business in the long run.

Marvin Cash00:39:14

Yeah. And I think the superpower, you know, and I would say podcasting, right?It's always funny because people will be like, well, you're anti this or anti that. I was like, well, no, I'm like, anti making mistakes and doing dumb stuff. I think you. You know, it's part of an integrated strategy.

Spencer Durrant00:39:26

Right.

Marvin Cash00:39:27

Analog and digital.But I think the super cool thing about using digital delivery is if you can get really thoughtful and granular about your listenership or your audience or your customers, you know, you're not building the podcast for everybody.

Spencer Durrant00:39:46

Right.

Marvin Cash00:39:47

And you don't need a lot of a tremendous amount of scale to get, you know, the economic and the intangible returns.

Spencer Durrant00:39:56

No, no, you don't. And you have to remember, you can't be everything to everyone. There's a Bare Naked Ladies album.Bare Naked Ladies is my favorite band, and they've got an album called Everything to Everyone, and ironically, it's one of their least liked albums. So. But you can't be everything to everyone. And if you. If you try to, you're never going to meet it. So.

Marvin Cash00:40:21

Yeah, it's interesting, too, because talking about kind of the mix of, you know, analog, you know, in digital, one of the genius things, you know, talking to the guys at Grundin's, you know, they do that cappy hour, the fly shows, and they figured out that it was actually cheaper to give someone a hat in their booth to get them to become a customer than it was to target them on social media.

Spencer Durrant00:40:46

Oh, I believe that 100%.

Spencer Durrant00:40:48

Right.

Spencer Durrant00:40:49

The hat's, what, 15 bucks their cost? Yeah, yeah, 15. Maybe 20 if you're getting a real bougie hat. Yeah. Oh, I believe that 100%.

Marvin Cash00:41:00

And the people that are there are, like, ready to buy and try. So I think it's an interesting thing.And so, you know, it's interesting because, you know, like, I don't do questions on the scale you do, but I, you know, literally for both the podcasts, because we've got the articulate flying, you know, to the point about niching down.I've got the butcher shop, which is only predator fly stuff, but, you know, people sending questions and they get stickers, and I literally write a note to everybody and just drop it in the mail.

Spencer Durrant00:41:23

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:41:24

And, you know, it's just kind of an amazing thing. And I mean, I. I share that experience with you, you know, just kind of random stuff.Like you, you know, I can remember walking through the atlant fishing show one year and people were like, you're that guy. And I was like, who's that guy? And they're like, you're the guy that's the voice.

Spencer Durrant00:41:39

That'S. Yeah, it's always fun to get recognized out in. In. In the real world. It's always fun.

Marvin Cash00:41:46

Yeah.

Spencer Durrant00:41:46

So.

Marvin Cash00:41:47

Because I'm always worried that I'm just some crazy guy, you know, it's kind of like fishing affirmation. I feel like I'm some crazy guy in my home office making podcasts.And, you know, when I fish, I need very little feedback just to know that I'm not waving a very expensive graphite stick to. To no fish.

Spencer Durrant00:42:00

Right.

Spencer Durrant00:42:01

Exactly.

Spencer Durrant00:42:02

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:42:03

So.So, you know, as we kind of, you know, we've got kind of, we'll call IT Digital Media 1.0, and, you know, within the last, I don't know, year to two years, I mean, you know, AI has been gasoline on the fire.

Spencer Durrant00:42:18

Right.

Marvin Cash00:42:19

You know, you have any thoughts about where you think AI will make the kind of digital connection work that we're talking about better and kind of where it will be too seductive and, you know, create a lot of noise that's not going to move things forward very much.

Spencer Durrant00:42:35

Well, I think if we were smart, we would take the documentary Terminator to heart and we'd unplug the stinking thing, because I just don't think it's going to end well for anybody. You know, teaching high school, the biggest concern I saw was the use of AI let kids just not think and engage with anything.And the apathy among kids was mind blowing. Just, it was very hard to get them to engage with and care about anything other than what was on their phone.And if they could get ChatGPT to write their essay, then, yeah, why wouldn't they do that? Right, so I'm not a big fan.I don't know that it's going to have a huge impact though, because at least for right now, you can still tell the AI content from the real stuff.So in terms of whether we're trying to make content completely with AI or just using it to help, there's a couple of things I'll have Chat GPT do for me. It's really useful in coming up with titles and it's really good at giving me a base for email content.So I'll say something like, you know, I need an email about this topic. And I struggle with being concise, as you can probably tell, because I'm. I could talk for hours and hours.So I'm always aware of the fact that I try to stuff too many words into something. So when I tell Chat GPT be concise and I can read it, it gives me ideas. And I never use the Chat GPT stuff in an email I send, ever.But it gives me ideas of how can I say this in as few words as possible, get the point across and not take up too much of the reader's time? Because I don't want to. I don't want to throw extra junk in there that I don't need to. Right.So from that standpoint, I think it's going to help the folks who want to use it to improve their own communication skills.But I think overall it's probably just going to make stuff worse because you're going to have real people competing with some Silicon Valley jack wagon who went fly fishing once because he went to Montana on a vegan tofu retreat or some such nonsense, and then he's going to, oh, I'm going to make some fly fishing content and whatever.You know, obviously that's an extreme example, but you might run into stuff like that where they're gonna start pushing out just junk just because they can. So. And, and then the low leverage websites too.I mean, the places that do the absolute bare minimum right now just to try and get SEO traffic and sell affiliate stuff or, you know, whatever it is, it's just gonna get worse with them trying to soak up bandwidth because they've never put a lot of effort into their content in the first place and now they have to put even less into it.So it's going to make the sport worse, it's going to make it a bit more confusing for people to figure out and then it's just going to make our jobs harder.The people who actually want to connect with other people, help other people, and walk them through this thing, it's just going to make it tougher for all of us.

Marvin Cash00:46:16

Do you think maybe there's a. I think there's going to be a lot more noise.

Spencer Durrant00:46:19

Right.

Marvin Cash00:46:20

But do you think in some ways, like, I kind of, you know, I've started to kind of talk about this stuff, and I think I talked before recording. I'm actually going to speak on AI down in Chattanooga here in a couple weeks at the Outdoor Writers association annual meeting.But if you lean into your humanity and your trust that you may have to fight through a lot more digital noise. But I think maybe you get to build something that's even more valuable on the other side.

Spencer Durrant00:46:45

Yeah. I think once we get through it, it just ties back to what I said earlier.Folks are going to trust the people who've helped them at the end of the day. So if you can do that and continue to do it, I think. I think you'll be okay. It's just gonna be a pain in the butt for a while.

Marvin Cash00:47:00

Yeah. It's interesting. Cause I don't really use it for, you know, like, I would never use it for a newsletter. I would never use it for a blog post.You know, I'm not an avatar on the podcast. I try to use it in places for kind of process stuff that has to get done because, you know.

Spencer Durrant00:47:18

You know, you've never used it. Sorry to interrupt, but. So you've never used it for brainstorming for a blog post or brainstorming for an email before?

Marvin Cash00:47:28

Oh, not for a post. I would say, like, you know, every now and again, I will, you know, pop it in to get a research report on a potential guest.But it's really just to see if there's anything different. But it's not a systematic part of my process.

Spencer Durrant00:47:40

Right.

Spencer Durrant00:47:42

Do you think it's wrong to use it that way?

Marvin Cash00:47:44

No, I don't. I think that the question you have to ask yourself.

Spencer Durrant00:47:50

Right.

Marvin Cash00:47:50

Is, you know, if you're trying to help people, kind of. We put in the framework of our conversation.

Spencer Durrant00:47:55

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:47:56

The question is, where would your audience feel that their trust had been betrayed if you sold them synthetic content that you didn't disclose to them?

Spencer Durrant00:48:06

Yeah.

Spencer Durrant00:48:07

Right.

Spencer Durrant00:48:07

Oh, I agree with that.

Spencer Durrant00:48:09

Right.

Spencer Durrant00:48:09

100%.

Marvin Cash00:48:10

Yeah. So I don't think that. I don't think it's wrong. And I think people. I think the mis. Like, you know, I'm not saying, like, Marvin's way is the way.I just think that.

Spencer Durrant00:48:18

Right.

Marvin Cash00:48:18

I'VE learned that lesson. I've been around the sun enough times to know better than that. But what I would say is I think the real mistake you make is not being deliberate.

Spencer Durrant00:48:27

Right.

Spencer Durrant00:48:28

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:48:29

And as I lecture my sons all the time, trust is an asymmetric asset. Hard to build, easy to lose.And to your point, if you've got, basically people that are just clickbaiting affiliate links, they don't really care anyway, right?

Spencer Durrant00:48:42

No, they don't.

Marvin Cash00:48:42

But I think the way I look at it is if I sent someone a newsletter that I didn't write and they thought it was me, or they read it and they knew it wasn't me, I don't think that helps the brand.

Spencer Durrant00:48:54

No. 100%, it doesn't. And that's why, like I said, I only use it for brainstorming. But it's nice.It's a good way to get around writer's block sometimes, where if you just can't figure out, how do I say this? It's nice to see it written out some other way, and then you can think, oh, okay. And it sort of jogs that loose in your head. At least for me it has.So it's been nice to have another way to. Another tool to try and use to be creative, but not to ever use it in the final product, because that's. Yeah, that's just never gonna go well.

Marvin Cash00:49:31

Yeah. Do you know, like, for example, in podcasting, there's so many things that you have to do for every episode, Right?

Spencer Durrant00:49:36

Yep.

Marvin Cash00:49:37

And I wouldn't say they are per se creative.

Spencer Durrant00:49:41

No.

Marvin Cash00:49:41

And so if you can offload that to some type of artificial intelligence, you know the drill, Right. Like, whether it's like, well, here's my main image, but I need this in four other image formats, Right?

Spencer Durrant00:49:51

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:49:51

Or here's how I build my database for all my show notes, or here's how you can clean up my transcript for me, I think those are all things because, I mean, what's the reality? Almost none of us that are doing niche podcasting are going to pay to have a human being clean up a podcast.And then the reality is they don't fly fish, so they're going to probably make it worse than it was when it came out the first time.But I think there's a ton of stuff like that that you know that from a creative perspective, the way I look at it and the way I kind of talk to other creatives like you about it is if there's all this stuff that you have to do but doesn't really kind of make you have a better product if you can offload that in a responsible way where it either creates more freedom for you to be creative.

Spencer Durrant00:50:36

Right?

Spencer Durrant00:50:37

Yeah.

Marvin Cash00:50:38

Then I think that's a great thing from a creator because. And this is true, I think, not just for, you know, I think.I think creator is almost too narrow a term, but I think for small business people, even people in kind of a traditional workplace or entrepreneurs like, you know, the reality is you can't hire all the people you need, right?

Spencer Durrant00:50:57

No.

Marvin Cash00:50:58

And so that's the place where I've spent most of my time with it is.And then there are things like, for example, you know, they're great AI tools for like, you know, taking out the garage door opening in the middle of an episode, right?

Spencer Durrant00:51:11

Yeah, yeah.

Marvin Cash00:51:12

And there's all kinds of stuff like that. But, yeah, I don't know. It's an interesting thing, and it's going to be interesting to kind of see, you know, kind of where it all settles out.But, yeah, I don't. I mean, I don't think it's bad to use it for brainstorming. You know, it's like, I talked to you. I'm lucky. I know you. I know you pretty well.So there's, you know, there's not a lot of, you know, incremental value for me trolling around and chatgpt to learn more because I've probably got a pretty good basis for the interview. But for other people, you know, where someone's like, you should talk to this person, and I don't know a lot about them, it's great.And you can just say, hey, write me a research report just to give me background, and you can kind of read it and then you can kind of pick questions out. I think that's perfectly fine.

Spencer Durrant00:51:48

Yeah, I agree.

Marvin Cash00:51:49

And I wouldn't even say, you know, as long as it doesn't bother your audience and the relationship that you have with them, I just think the line's going to be different for everybody. Right?

Spencer Durrant00:51:59

Yeah, it is.

Marvin Cash00:52:00

And so, you know, I don't know, I could see probably not in fly fishing, but I don't know, you probably. Do you remember Max Headroom, the TV show?

Spencer Durrant00:52:08

No, I don't.

Marvin Cash00:52:08

It was an old, like, like AI kind of chatbot that lived in a TV.

Spencer Durrant00:52:14

Right.

Marvin Cash00:52:14

I think that TV show was in the 80s probably, you know, I could see for something, people actually finding that interesting.

Spencer Durrant00:52:20

Right?

Marvin Cash00:52:21

Or, yeah, but, yeah, it's. I don't know. It's a. It's an interesting thing. But it's changing incredibly quickly that I.

Spencer Durrant00:52:29

Will say, yes, it is.

Marvin Cash00:52:32

So.So, you know, before I let you go this evening and play with the two dogs and check in with the family, is there anything else you're kind of working on either kind of personally or at Flylords or, you know, with the podcast and with Venture Flyco that you want to share with folks?

Spencer Durrant00:52:49

I think the big thing right now is we've got our, our nymphing masterclass coming out of Ventures. Fingers crossed. Hopefully the end of the month, the end of August. We'll see. I'm not sure when exactly we're going to start dropping them.Productions just always take, take so much longer than you would think, but that I'm really excited for that.And then we've got a slate of really interesting call them how we Fish videos, where it's a little bit of adventure, a little bit of storytelling, but we take you along for the ride with us.So we show you how we fly fish certain situations, whether it's lakes or streams or pocket water or whatever, we just walk you through, here's this rig, here's why I'm using it, and then we show you whether it works or not.So there's footage of me getting skunked all over YouTube, but we've got a, we've got all four that are filmed and two more we're going to try to do for next year that I'm really excited about releasing. We just wrapped up the fourth one last week. Had a ton of fun. I got eaten alive by mosquitoes for it.But there's going to be some really fun content coming out on YouTube for, oh, first half of next year once we get that stuff all squared away. So I'm really excited about what's going on there.And then I never know what's going on with Flylords because I'm doing the news over there and then I'm editing gear. So it's always new and different, whatever I get to talk about or write about over there, but there's always fun stuff going on over there. So it's.I know I've got a new Winston fly rod sitting here that's going to get reviewed soon, so you can be looking for that. But yeah, other than that, it's things.Things are just kind of plugging along, you know, don't, don't miss the show, don't miss the podcast and don't miss what we're doing, adventures.

Marvin Cash00:54:50

And will your adoring fans be able to bump into you any of the fly fishing shows. Like, you know, I think you and I always go back and forth. Are you going to go to Denver or not or.

Spencer Durrant00:54:59

Oh, I want to go. We'll see if we go this year. It's. It's always hard for me to want. We're. I'm on the road so much as it is.It's kind of nice to get a break in the winter sometimes. So sometimes it's hard to pry me out of Wyoming, even in the middle of winter. It's hard to pry me away sometimes.

Marvin Cash00:55:22

Well, I mean, you know, you know, flying into West Yellowstone in the wintertime is not for the faint of heart. And you can find yourself sleeping in your truck if you don't watch out.

Spencer Durrant00:55:31

Right?

Spencer Durrant00:55:32

Yeah, well, and shoot, you can't even. Most the flights into the closest airport to me get diverted in the winter anyways.They get diverted up to Montana because half the time it's too windy or too icy to land in Wyoming. So then you're looking at a two and a half, three hour drive home from the airport in Montana, depending on how the roads are.

Marvin Cash00:55:55

Yeah, that's unnecessarily character building.

Spencer Durrant00:55:58

Yeah, well, it's something. So.

Marvin Cash00:56:01

So what's the best place for folks to kind of follow your writing, your podcasting, and all of your adventures?

Spencer Durrant00:56:08

Yeah, it's just ventures flyco on YouTube for all the podcasts and the videos and then over@flylordsmag.com for all the writing.

Marvin Cash00:56:17

Well, there you go. Well, Spencer, as always, it's always great to catch up. I appreciate you taking some time and talking to me this evening.

Spencer Durrant00:56:24

You bet, Marvin. Thanks for having me on.

Marvin Cash00:56:25

You bet. Take care. Well, folks, we hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.Don't forget to check out the links to all of this episode's sponsors in the show. Notes. Tight lines, everybody.