Hometown Hero Outdoors

Crafting the Perfect Cast: A Dive into Custom Fishing Rods with Gold Standard Outdoors

• Hometown Hero Outdoors • Season 2 • Episode 8

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Meet Joe and Ben Swanson, the rod-crafting prodigies behind Gold Standard Outdoors. This dynamic duo has been crafting bespoke rods since their teenage years, and their shared passion for the great outdoors is truly infectious. Joe is the primary rod builder located in Wisconsin while Air Force Officer Ben, who is on the cusp of his promotion to Captain, handles the administrative side of things, including website development and taxes.

Join us as we delve into the technical side of rod making. The Swanson brothers enlighten us on the intricacies of custom rod crafting, from selecting the perfect rod blank to fine-tuning the handle for the angler.  Get ready for a captivating conversation filled with personal stories, technical insights, and a shared love for all things fishing.

Produced by Phil Ewert Productions

Theme Music: Hero's Journey
Joel Loopez Tunepocket.com
Licensed by: Phil Ewert Productions

hometownherooutdoors.org

Speaker 1:

Music. Welcome to the hometown hero Outdoors podcast. Here is your host, Chris Tatro.

Speaker 2:

Music and welcome back listeners of the hometown hero Outdoors podcast. Today we have gold standard outdoors with us. They are a brother, a set of brothers here that actually engage in rod buildings. Like, they do a variety of different things when it comes to building rods. They do freshwater, saltwater fly rods as well as hardwater ice fishing rods. Is that right, guys?

Speaker 3:

Yes, sir, and a little bit of musky as well.

Speaker 2:

Nice. So we got Joe Swanson and Ben Swanson here. Joe is actually a graduate of the University of Eau Claire, wisconsin, and we got Ben he's current active duty military down in Georgia. I'll read a little bio here about these individuals. So we have Joe and Ben. They've been building custom fishing rods since they were been 14 and 11. They both took a while to really get into it, being so young and with being very active in three sports and loving the outdoors.

Speaker 2:

Joe, as we said, went to the University of Eau Claire. He played football and didn't have any free time to build rods until COVID really canceled their season for football. Then he had plenty of time to jump in to making rods. He's posted a bunch of his products onto social media and then it began to grow. Ben is in the Air Force the whole time and he's focused mainly on his website development, helping with taxes and a lot more behind the scenes work, while Joe has been running the social media side of things as well. Ben just gave us the news that he is promoting to a captain in the Air Force here. So congratulations to you guys and to Ben and your career achievements.

Speaker 2:

So, ben, why don't you introduce yourself real quick? Tell us about who you are, where you came from, your relationship with your brother and growing up in military Sure.

Speaker 4:

So Joe and I grew up very active, as you said, in the outdoors. We lived near the St Courthier River. We'd take our bikes down to the river, go fish and hang out with buddies, go to the sandbars down there. So ever since we could get out and fish on our own, we've been doing that and that's basically the basis for cold, standard outdoors and our passion for what we do and what we basically empower people to do through some of the apparel that we have and our fish and rods as well. And then, like you mentioned, chris, currently in the Air Force I'm a civil engineer and very soon here less than a month I'll be moving to Missouri, a new assignment at Whiteman Air Force Base. Same thing, civil engineering, but looking forward to a new place, new faces and potentially a new position.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. Yeah, thanks for your service and giving us some background there. Pretty exciting. Are you enjoying your time in the Air Force at this point?

Speaker 4:

I do, as you all know. I mean military has its ups and downs, but I'd say there's a lot more high side kind of stuff. That's exciting and I look forward to all the opportunities that I know I'll have in the future.

Speaker 2:

You know and you're doing it the right way. In hindsight, you know I was in the Army and if I would have redid my career I would have gone officer and been like a chief warrant maybe, or and I would have gone to the Air Force. I saw how I treated their people on deployment and the lengths and I was like man. I should have did that.

Speaker 4:

It's not all that bad, you're not wrong.

Speaker 2:

Better lodging, better food. And then when we're on Balad and yeah, in Iraq we'd always go over and sneak into the Air Force dining halls. Good call, food was much better. All right, Joe, let's talk about you and your relationship with your brother and growing up here. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and your guys as rod building ventures.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, like Ben said, we grew up around the St Croix was an oseola to south of Oseola, wisconsin, and had a cabin in Turtle Lake just east of there, and so we'd always go up to the cabin if we were in Fish and on the river hunting and you know I was just I was my favorite time was when we were anywhere in the water or around the water, around the woods, and you know, just really enjoyed being outside.

Speaker 3:

And Ben and I were both active in sports as well, but I feel like we both really enjoyed the outdoors almost more than the sports. So I don't know, ben was always a older brother and he kind of helped me critique the small things in rod building. I remember the first rod I ever built when I was roughly 11, I there's probably about 10 guides on there and I held it up to show Ben and I go here, look at my rod, and as I held it up, about half the guys just fell off. It was just so bad. But I'd like to like to say we've came a came a little bit a little way since then. So it's been fun Ben's. Ben's helped out a lot behind the scenes, like we said earlier, with the taxes and the website. That's spent two of the major major things, and then I've been kind of the in charge of actually building the rods and then also social media.

Speaker 2:

I mean, tell our listeners how much goes into actually building a rod, like tell us both the ups and downs, like what different types of techniques or tactics have you used? I know one of the things that we do is we used to hold a rod building class here for HHO in Minnesota and we'd get a bunch of people together and we'd actually do a class and we got to build their own rod and we would cover those costs for them and I know that's been very popular and people find it very therapeutic too to be able to have something that they can hold the news later on too. So tell us about the different techniques or tactics that you use when it comes to evaluating, maybe, a rod blank or or just what makes this rod work and make it beneficial for them. Each use, I guess when it comes to the fishing that you do.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, sitting down and building a rod from start to finish. I mean I could sit here and talk for hours on the specific techniques and how you do it, but it really comes down to Ben and I really enjoy the custom aspect of it. I mean, if we had to sit there and build seven foot medium light with black and gold thread or whatever it is, all day, I'd go crazy. But I really enjoy the little bit of a variety we have from, like we said, freshwater, little bit of saltwater, ice rods, fly rods, musky, just the different aspects of it I really enjoy.

Speaker 3:

You get someone that's maybe five, six. We like to adjust the handle for them if they want, if they like it, if they're jigging for walleyes and they like that handle to sit right there versus someone who's a little bit taller. Sometimes people like it to sit even in their armpit or however it is. I just really like that variety where it's not always the exact same thing. And then we offer hundreds of different colors. I guess you can see some of the color options. Those are our threads in the background here.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3:

Quite a few. Yeah, it's really fun, it keeps me sane and I really enjoy the custom aspect.

Speaker 2:

How did you go about finding the blanks that you use? How did you hone in on that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we tried a lot of different blanks when we were younger. We tried some that were built local St Croix. We've tried probably half a dozen to a dozen different blanks, some made overseas, some made in America. We really just found the ones that we really felt were the best rods. I mean, I'm not one to sit and brag about better, nice products that we sell, but some of these rods that we're building are not to brag, but to brag a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they're allowed to bring, it's your own product.

Speaker 3:

Why wouldn't you? Yeah, I just like to let a customer try one out and say, obviously I can't let everybody do that. I've got people that I'm fishing with in a boat that have never tried a rod and say, hey, you've got your St Croix, you've got your whatever branded is. Try this rod and see what you think. I'm not going to tell you about it, I just want you to feel it for yourself, and 99% of the time they feel that and they're just like holy smokes.

Speaker 2:

Ben, with your rod building. I assume you assist with that when you can. I don't know how much rod building you do when you're down in Georgia there with your military stuff, but when you come back home or down there do you do any of that?

Speaker 4:

I typically have made a few rods down here for saltwater fishing buddies of mine, co-workers, so I built a few more inshore style rods and then I guess occasionally I, when I come home for Maybe like a Christmas break, something like that Help Joe out with some of the warm and notness stuff for ice rods. So not really, I definitely am not the expert in rod building that Joe is, but trying to keep my skill up and Definitely do what I can.

Speaker 2:

We just touched on something, too, that maybe some of our listeners don't know. I know we got a lot of northern folk folk up here that don't really quite understand inshore, offshore. You guys want to talk about that and the different things that variables that might be for those rods.

Speaker 4:

Sure, the I guess, main basis for inshore rod is what you would typically fish for, like redfish, sea trout, some of your more maybe, I don't know one to two, three, four foot fish, pretty sizable but still manageable for a standard spinning or Bay casting rod. And then when you get offshore that's something that we have not gotten into yet that's going to be for your larger, huge fish, I guess, with your roller guides on your More of a Baycaster style rod where you're cranking fish up from anywhere from 50 feet deep to a couple hundred.

Speaker 2:

So, and it's all salt salt water, inshore, offshore, both definitely, yes, sir, okay interesting. So, with the, the northern waters that we have up here, joe, like what kind of different variety of rods you guys build for that? Like one of the, you talked about musky rods and walleye and Talk about panfish, like what are the differences?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, we could start with the smallest. So Ultralight is usually made, or, yeah, made, and you use it for panfish, so that's going to be something catching bluegills and crappies on, and I'm actually just looking at one right here that I'm gonna build a packers theme, so that'll be fun. And then we usually use a lot of medium lights and mediums, which is these are both spinning, those are for walleyes, vertical jigging or casting, and then sometimes bass fishermen also use medium lights and mediums for drop shotting and Niko and net rigs and all these fancy terms. And then we build bait casters for mostly bass and pike fishermen. And then, yeah, we do a couple fly rods and a couple musky rods per year as well.

Speaker 2:

I'm just looking at your website here, looking at the different things you have and I see that you're. It's talk about your custom casting rods, spinning musky how much? How much fly fishing rods do you guys build?

Speaker 3:

I'd say five to ten per year. It's. It's really fun I really enjoy. I'm actually building one over here. It's a 11 foot. I believe it's meant for steelhead it's. It's got like four different colors on. It's really unique, so it's fun to change it up once in a while. I'm not gonna sit here and say that we're fly rod experts or anything like that, but we can build. We can build a quality Fly rod or musky rod and Ben and I don't know the answer. We we have connections to figure it out, which is a nice thing about. You know all the technology these days versus you know 30, 40 years ago and you couldn't just look something up or call an expert. If we don't know something, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna figure it out.

Speaker 2:

I again the land of the north. Here, though, we do a lot of ice fishing. So what are the different types of ice fishing rods that you guys build for variable things? And then I know a big question I get asked quite a bit is the I'm a handle at the cork, you know, being split versus completely solid, like what are the ups and downs and why do people have varying Requests with that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm gonna say, grab some ice rods that I built. So this is just a standard. This is a 36 inch walleye reaper, great for a red lake, lake of the woods, malax and the ice season. And this is obviously a split grip. Traditionally Full cork is pretty standard. We've been using these split grips because For multiple reasons, sometimes when people use a pistol grip they like to have Kind of their palm sitting on the I don't know if you can see it very well, but their palm kind of so you can feel that blank a little bit more. Or some guys they actually put their finger right on that blank, so it's a little bit more sensitive as well. And then you know with this split grip your Materials, what half so your weight. You're saving a little bit of weights. Also, guys like it for the look looks. I would say over 95 percent of our sales are these split grips. They're definitely a hot item right now.

Speaker 2:

So and then? You can do variable colors on those as well, and it looks like some of the corking too. Does that change?

Speaker 3:

or yep. Yeah, we've got probably 25 30 different options. I'm just looking at in the corner here. We've got carbon fiber. This is a kind of a more tacky material. It's really really comfortable. It's called the slick grip or some people call it a win grip. That's just a brand. It's kind of like a golf club, almost just that really comfortable sticky material not actually sticky, but it it's really really comfortable. Yeah, we've got red, white and blue. That's one of our biggest, actually our one of our pan fish rods is called the alpha noodle and that blank glows in the dark. Along with we have white thread that also does some light blue and some light pink and some different colors that glow in the dark. So customers really like that if they're crappie fishing or walleye fishing late at late at dark.

Speaker 2:

And we've probably got Ten or so different ice rods that we build and then you do them for the the crappie pan fish and walleye, and then you do lake trout as well. Yeah, we do yeah something a little bit more spine to it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, those are fun rods. I got to fish lake trout up in Canada a couple years ago and that was. That was a lot of fun. We have different handles that you actually have a screw-in real seat and call it was the carnivore carnivore killers, kind of a unique name.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, and a lot of those get used for sturgeon as well. I know that there's a lot of lake trout rods on the river over here St Croix River or sturgeon because they'd have that spine that's available to it, so I Wasn't asked. So what are the different benefits of the lengths of the rods that you have for ice fishing? I know they can be very different.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we try to. We usually do anywhere between 20 it's, and then we also do a 32 and a 36 for the majority of our walleye or pan fish rods. A lot, of, a lot of people for the shorter rods. They like them because when you're sitting in a shack and it's kind of close quarters, they like to have a little bit of shorter rod. But if you're out hole hopping or moving around or you're in a bigger shack, the longer rod actually helps you fight the fish a little bit better. It helps you control it. And we're actually experimenting with rods.

Speaker 3:

I believe I can build an alpha noodle up to 48 inches. So there's new technology, new blank technology coming out. That's just unreal. I mean, you'd think that a 48 inch ice rod is a little bit out there and it definitely is. But once you get used to the length I'm not saying 48 is what I use for everything, but you know 40 to 44, I've been playing around with some alpha noodles that are that long and they're a lot of fun If you have the room and you know good conditions and stuff like that.

Speaker 2:

Ben, you got something to add. Looks like you got something you want to say.

Speaker 4:

I? If I did, I definitely would. But ice rods are not my forte. Joe's got that nailed down pretty good.

Speaker 2:

What is your forte then?

Speaker 4:

Well, I, if I had the time to and if I could, I'd definitely be building rods more. But I mean, like you mentioned, we built I guess have two websites. Now that we built, our current one was a beast to get through. I mean, we're extremely proud of it. It's extremely complex, but maybe we need to tailor that back a little bit for some, some users that just want to want to buy a rod and don't have to go through all the variations. But yeah, like you mentioned, I do a lot of stuff on the back shop side but would would love to get more into the rod building if I had the time.

Speaker 2:

Websites are definitely a large piece of the pie there. I mean in any business, I mean just there's a lot of background work. I mean, if you get into this it's a hobby that becomes a passion, you know, and then you want to share with others and you think you do it into a business and a lot of people do, and then you realize how much actually works associated with it to you know, like you said, the money, the taxes, the bookkeeping, you know the legality things of the website. It's a lot. I get it, we do. We deal with it as a nonprofit, you know.

Speaker 2:

So our websites technically four websites and one that and you know our websites probably only half completed to at this point, since we're, you know, in half the states. So I mean it's going to be a beast when it's done. So I feel your pain. I get it. All the little things that I like to go and do and enjoy over here, you know sometimes you just scale those back so you can get this other stuff done. So I feel you there. I was going to ask you too about your custom ordering. So do you have stuff on hand that you can sell any day? And then also, what is the custom ordering look like?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we have a handful of pre-builds in the website. So if you're looking for a just, they're sitting over right in front of me here so I'm kind of glancing at them right now, but they're. We've got some spinning rods. We got some casting rods, some of our spinning rods. We got some ultra lights. We got some medium lights for a walleye fisherman, got some mediums. Got some big castors for the bass guys We've got.

Speaker 3:

We try to keep a handful of pre-builds in the website and then when I season rolls around, those go flying off the shelves as well when we get our ice fishing pre-builds out there. But then if anybody's looking to build a custom one on the website, we have thousands upon thousands of options to custom build the website and if anybody has any questions, they can always reach out to our email a gold standard outdoors at gmailcom with questions on. Like Ben said earlier, there's definitely a few options out there, but that's kind of where we take our pride in. We're not cutting corners or not just making you know. We only offer one handle or one color of guides. We try to keep it as custom as possible. So that's kind of the reason why there's so many options.

Speaker 2:

What are the high level things that people like mainly request with these custom rods? What are the core things?

Speaker 3:

We've built a lot of red, white and blue and black and gold rods and so a lot of people, just once they see a picture of a, I'm just thinking I guess I could grab one, but it's just kind of a cork. Yeah, I'll just grab one right here. So this is one of our biggest sellers right here. It's a 7.2 medium light, a fast action, and this looks like cork. It's actually that wind material that is similar to our ice rods and a lot of people like that either. Otherwise, we have a couple of red, white and blue rod decals that we put over here. We can put people's names, we can put decals, we can put footballs, just about anything military related here. As long as it's not copyrighted, we can put it on a rod, essentially.

Speaker 2:

So that's pretty cool.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2:

So I mean, like if you had some high school students or whatever that aren't a fishing league or whatnot, you could do some custom team rods or something like that. Yeah for sure That'd be pretty cool, yeah, cool. What does a custom turnaround look like? I know you guys are busy and I'm sure building each rod is a little more tedious than some, and some not as tedious. But what does a turnaround look like that when people want to order something?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it depends on if we have the parts in stock or not, but I would say anywhere from two to four weeks. Right now, that's pretty standard throughout our, even during ice season. Unless it's a pre-build and we can try to, we ship those out. We ship those out within one to two days, but yeah, turnaround is probably about two to four weeks.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. I know we just bought a rod from you for my son. He got it. Do you know what the? Remind me exactly which one it is. I think it's one you just showed me almost.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it was very similar to that black and gold one. I believe it was either six foot or six six medium wide.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, six, six, I think, medium light and he's actually just wandered down to the water side Not too far from the house right now. He's pretty excited about using it. We actually got him a matching black and gold Real for it. So from 13 fishing. So he's pretty excited about that and he's been out enjoying that and Appreciate you guys helping us out with all that. But let's switch tracks a little bit. Let's talk about actually fishing. You know we got your fishing rods in there, but let's talk about your passions here. Obviously, you guys have a thing for fishing. So, ben, what is your favorite fishing to do, either down there or up here? Let's talk both.

Speaker 4:

I got a two-part answer. So Definitely, being down here close to the, the golf, saltwater fishing is is a lot of fun. We obviously didn't grow up doing that. Maybe did it a few times on vacation. But if I could pick yeah, either freshwater or salt water down here, I would definitely go with Salt water inshore and then when I'm coming back home here in a month I'm definitely looking forward to being back where there's wall walleyes and smallmouth. Smallmouth bass or Are a lot of fun. Definitely miss fishing them.

Speaker 2:

Where do you guys like to go and hit up the smallmouth? They've made them lax.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we uh. I Guess we've hit up my lax a few times, but rainy lake is where we've seen the most success on smallies.

Speaker 2:

You're talking rainy up in northern Minnesota.

Speaker 4:

Yes, sir, yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when I worked on my lax. I mean Remember we got ranked number one in the US for smallmouth fishery so it was pretty wild watching people pull out 21 inch smallmouth bass and larger. So it's a really good fishery. But yeah, rainy lakes, beautiful country too. You can't beat the scenery and the fishing there walleye and bass.

Speaker 4:

Definitely.

Speaker 2:

About you, joe. What's your, what's your jam?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I like to think I'm a walleye guy, but sometimes it's it's hard, especially this time of year, midwinter, to get on them. But I always take a trip or two up to Red Lake in the spring, or I shouldn't say always. We are the spring Early ice. We've been going up there the last couple years and, like Ben mentioned, we've been going up to rainy lake ever since we were kids. We've got a couple family friends up there and then Crews up to malax once a while and we get the opportunity to and there's some good fishing on the st Croix. So walleyes and then when I'm not targeting those bass are obviously fun. And then I do like me some panfish. My buddies give me crap about catching panfish but I I enjoy especially big old blue yell.

Speaker 2:

I'm with you. I love it. I'd rather go pan fishing than anything else in the winter and yeah, I just did a podcast about turkey hunting too. You know, it's just the spring, that's a little different than most people, you know, but I love hunting turkeys and I love doing pan fishing in the winter. You know, I'm not a huge open water person. I'd rather wait for Things to ice up. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's just because how my dad raised me bringing the ice fishing, probably more than Open water, but I feel you on that, are you? So you guys are one of those Groups of people that's just heading up to Red Lake right after Thanksgiving when there's two or three inches of ice and ice Breaks away and it will get stranded on the lake. That's you guys.

Speaker 3:

I Haven't been up there that early, but I think we're planning a trip for Pretty early December here. That's one of the trips and then Potentially another one. So yeah, but I was. You mentioned turkey hunting. It just reminded me that Turkey, the spring, is just so much fun. You got turkey hunting, then you've got the crappies are usually spawning, and then Fishing opener, you try to catch wallies. And then the morale mushrooms Do you? Do you like mushrooms at all? Oh, I love morale hunting. Yeah, it's. It's like an Easter egg hunt, but way better.

Speaker 2:

I don't end up dicting in a weird kind of creepy way, wandering through the woods, staring at the ground all the time, looking for trees with bark that's falling off. I Love that time of the year, though, but it's, it's great. Like I said in the other podcast too, it's that time of the year where things are starting to thawed around here and cooped up all winter and I'm ready to be out in the woods and do something different. It's like our winners last, for, you know seems like eight, nine months now, if not longer. You know, we're in the the warmer time of the year for two or three, and then all of a sudden it's back to winter. But Do you? What do you do for fun down there outside of fishing Ben, when you got downtime?

Speaker 4:

I guess sadly, I'd say between working and then our Air Force things and then doing gold standard stuff, either throughout the week or on the weekend. I'll hit the gym quite often, definitely try to stay fit. I'll sometimes get out hang out with some friends, but it's a lot of work Air Force stuff and then gold standard outdoors.

Speaker 2:

Well, you already got a retirement plan set up for when you get out eventually someday. Are you going to do a career the whole time, or are you just going to see where it goes for now?

Speaker 4:

Going to see where it goes. I have no complaints with Air Force. Really no reason to get out now, but would like to start a family eventually and prioritize that. So, Air Force has been good to me, but plan on staying in as long as I can.

Speaker 2:

Well, you got to help spread the word of HHO. We're starting to grow in Georgia. We've got a team lead there. They just started up in the last couple months. We're trying to get their feet wet and get some stuff moving. But be a good connection for you, get on. And then also, if you have any opportunities or anyone that you could connect with them, we could get some people out in the outdoors and do something different.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I'd be glad to. Where are they located out of?

Speaker 2:

It's a great question. I'll have to talk to Sean Ellsberg. He's our regional director that has managed that relationship down there. But I'll get in touch with them and we'll get you guys hooked up and have some more discussions, so talk about it. Yeah, I know that'd be awesome. We're always trying to grow and get people the help that they need out in the outdoors. So, guys, what are the different ways that people can find you? Social media-wise website, how can people find you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we both have. I don't know if you can see the banner right here, but I believe it's. We have TikTok, instagram and Facebook Pretty much as Gold Center Outdoors, and then our website is goldcenteroutdoorscom so pretty fancy name. But yeah, we've got a beautiful website. If anybody like to get some merch or rods, like I said, if you have any questions about that, you can always email ben or I at goldcenteroutdoorscom. Ben, do you have anything to add to that?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we do have. It's Joe's phone number on the website. So if you guys, you know late at night need to call a friend, hit Joe up. But I mean recently been dealing with trying to figure some stuff out and get stuck with the chat chat options online and there's no phone to call. So if you guys do need something regarding a rod or a piece of apparel, you have a question on reach out to that number and we'd be more than happy to answer a question. I'll help you guys out.

Speaker 2:

It's awesome. So now, with our listeners in the podcast coming out in the next few weeks here, we have ice season coming in the Northland. If they want to reach out to you and start getting things moving here, it's probably what's a good timeline for people to reach out before we have ice hit here, and I said two to four weeks build time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean as soon as possible. With deer season right around the corner, you know weekends and weeknights are gonna be booked up with sitting in a deer stand, hopefully. So, I guess, as like I said, as soon as possible, but for sure, you know, early November. Well, we're gonna be building a bunch of rods. We're gonna have a lot of pre builds on the website. So if you find something you like, feel free to just snag it off the website. Or if you want to custom build one, plenty of options as well.

Speaker 2:

No, it's great. I know you guys do some work with Broke productions too. They're the ones that do all our filming, and you guys have done, I believe, some videoing as well. Is that right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, Dale's been great to us.

Speaker 2:

No, it's awesome. So I'm looking forward to getting some of you guys that's fishing rods and to some of our members hands, get them out there and showcase what they can and can do. I'm not gonna say cannot, but hopefully there's nothing that's cannot do, but try things out. We're looking forward to having a partnership with these guys and they are military owned, you know, with Ben and his military service there. So we're excited to help support military businesses here. So incredibly excited to get moving forward and try out some new fishing rods and hopefully our members can hop on board check these guys out. But we'll get on some trips and try the rods with us.

Speaker 2:

If you want, you like it, you can reach out to Joe or Ben to be able to try your own and get maybe some custom built. You know, like I said, my son has one now and he's absolutely in love with it. So you know, I don't know my 12 year old, you know it's a second fishing rod, so I'm hoping he's careful and well. Thank you, gentlemen. That's about it for today's podcast. Do you have any last statements or anything that you'd like to add before we close out?

Speaker 3:

I've got something Thank you very much for having us on and I've just been watching some podcasts and some videos of you know, some trips that you guys have gone on and really looking forward to continuing this relationship and hopefully able to, like I said earlier, try to help out in any way possible, whether that's providing fishing rods or going, you know, actually on a physical trip or two. But there's a lot of great men and women who have served our country out there and just trying to find some ways to get back, especially with having a little bit more free time after graduating from school. So I'm looking forward to this relationship Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

How about you? Ben, Appreciate you having us on and moving closer to home, moving closer to where you guys are centrally located. Look forward to meeting you in person and definitely, like Joe said, to meet up and get out on some trips for sure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, congratulations on your promotion. Coming up here, that's exciting. So I hope everything goes well with that and thank you. Thank you, you get all those lower enlisted whipped into shape. I don't know if that's going to be a task for you. We'll see what happens.

Speaker 2:

We'll see All right, gentlemen. Thank you for coming on Again. Listeners, this is Gold Standard Outdoors. They are a veteran owned company that is out of Wisconsin and they make custom awesome fishing rods to your standard, you know. So please reach out to them if you have any questions. I'd like to try their product or get on some H8 Joe trips and try them out here. But thank you, gentlemen, for coming on. And if you are a military service member, a veteran or a first responder and you are finding yourself in a difficult time where it may be dark and things don't seem right, you can always reach out to us at hometown here outdoors. Our field staff are also trained and assist with the crisis intervention, or you can call 988, the crisis intervention line, and be able to get some help. So you know we're here. There's people here that want to listen and want to help you. So don't get stuck in your own thoughts. Reach out. It's okay With that. We will see you in the next hometown hero outdoors podcast. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the hometown hero outdoors podcast. For more information, visit our website at hometownherooutdoorsorg.

People on this episode

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Christopher Tetrault

Host
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Phil Ewert

Producer