About Episode 6:
The Austin-based guide discusses fishing the rivers and lakes in and around the capital city, as well as throughout his home state of Texas. He also details the humble beginnings of what’s now known as the LoCo Trash Bash, an annual event focused on cleaning up the lower Colorado River; the unexpected origins of his eponymous Dedeaux popper; and his former life as frontman of the funk band Bad Mutha Goose and the Brothers Grimm. The Wild South is presented in partnership with Duck Camp.
Editor’s note:
This episode was recorded a few weeks before the passing of Lenée Dedeaux, Alvin’s wife. We send our condolences to the Dedeaux family and all those who knew Lenée. If you wish to help Alvin and his family financially during this time, please see this GoFundMe page.
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Sites mentioned in Episode 6:
“Be Somebody” by Bad Mutha Goose and the Brothers Grimm
Alvin’s Instagram: @alvin_dedeaux_fly_fishing
Alvin’s Youtube: @AlvinDedeauxFlyFishing
Alvin’s Website: Alvin Dedeaux Fly Fishing
Conservation Organizations:
American Fly Fishing Trade Association
Other:
Transcript of Episode 6:
Eddie Nickens:
Hey, Wild Southers, Eddie Nickens here. We’re so glad to have you on the line, but we want to take a quick moment to preface this upcoming interview with the news that, sadly, very sadly, Alvin Dedeaux’s wife recently passed away a few weeks after this episode was taped. But with Alvin’s permission, we want to roll this conversation as it happened, because it just so happens that Alvin Dedeaux is one of the classiest, most humane individuals we know of in the South. So our love and our best to him and to his children, and what we know is a difficult, difficult time. In our show notes, you can find details on the GoFundMe account that’s been set up by Alvin’s many, many friends. And to our listeners, to this growing Wild South family, thanks for being here.
Alvin Dedeaux (00:00):
I was out on the Llano River and we were just loading the boat up, and I looked down and there’s this chartreuse flip flop just floating down the river. And I was like, that’s the perfect color for a frog popper.
Dave DiBenedetto (00:22):
Welcome to the Wild South Podcast. I’m Dave DiBenedetto, editor-in-chief of Garden and Gun Magazine.
Eddie Nickens (00:29):
And I’m Eddie Nickens, contributing editor for Garden and Gun.
Dave DiBenedetto (00:33):
Together, we are talking with the most interesting outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen in the South and beyond.
Eddie Nickens (00:40):
Quail hunters and duck hunters, trout anglers and redfish fanatics, musicians, scientists, writers, wild game cooks, and frankly, a few wildcats we dig up along the way.
Dave DiBenedetto (00:51):
We are talking with legends and legends in the making.
Eddie Nickens (00:55):
All with unforgettable stories of life way beyond the sidewalk. Today we’re talking to Alvin Dedeaux, and he is a guide in Austin, Texas. This dude, he spends a lot of time in flip flops, way off the sidewalk. He’s got his own guiding and outfitting service, All Water Guides. He’s done trash cleanups. He’s got an incredible YouTube presence. He’s a social media master ambassador for all kinds of brands. This guy has Texas dialed in.
Dave DiBenedetto (01:28):
Yeah, man. So he came across our radar, Garden and Gun. He was a champion of conservation. He was first recommended to us by Simon Perkins, the CEO of Orvis, for the amazing work he did at the LoCo Trash Bash, which is an event that he created. And we’re gonna hear more about that and just his enthusiasm for that area of the world. Who knew Austin, Texas as a fishing hotbed? I mean, so fun to talk to Alvin and such a cool dude. So what do you say? We get right to it.
Eddie Nickens (02:05):
Let’s do it. Alvin Dedeaux is in the house, man, we’re so excited to have you, buddy.
Alvin Dedeaux (02:18):
Yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (02:19):
I’m just delighted to have you here on the podcast with us. Alvin, I know you’re a former champion of conservation in the pages of Garden and Gun, and I know you’re a former lead singer, and I know you are now currently just a badass fishing guide and shop owner. So welcome.
Alvin Dedeaux (02:39):
Well I’m gonna say that most of those things are true because I’m such a modest guy.
Eddie Nickens (02:50):
Hey, my niece moved to Austin last year.
Alvin Dedeaux (02:53):
Yeah.
Eddie Nickens (02:53):
I know. Austin’s this little hamlet out there. I figured maybe you bumped into her at some point. I know it’s pretty small town, not not much happening in Austin these days, right?
Alvin Dedeaux (03:02):
Yeah. Well, you know, I moved here in 1982. There was 350,000 people and the biggest single population in the city was UT about 50,000. Wow. Wow. It’s always been about 50,000. So when school was out, it was a pretty noticeable difference in the activity in town. But I think we’re, I know we’re over a million. I hear that the Metropolitan area is getting closer to like 1.8 or something, so I haven’t seen her.
Dave DiBenedetto (03:36):
Alright. I was doing a little research, Alvin and
Alvin Dedeaux (03:39):
Oh, no.
Dave DiBenedetto (03:40):
I mean, obviously a lot of folks know you were the lead singer in a punk rock band.
Alvin Dedeaux (03:45):
A funk band that was a bunch of punk rock musicians.
Dave DiBenedetto (03:49):
Okay. All right. All right. Noted.
Bad Mutha Goose and the Brothers Grimm (03:54):
That’s what I’m talking about. And if you say I’m gonna listen, then you know, I’m gonna shout.
Dave DiBenedetto (03:58):
Is it true that Nirvana opened up for you guys?
Alvin Dedeaux (04:01):
They did, yeah. Yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (04:03):
I mean, tell me about that.
Alvin Dedeaux (04:05):
So, the funny thing is I’d never really thought much of it until somebody reminded me years later, sent me a flier from the gig. I think they actually did like maybe three or four shows opening for us. Wow. Man, I don’t know, maybe 1990, something like that. Okay. Yeah. I, I barely remember them from one of the shows, but the story I really like is about the last show that we probably would have done with Nirvana. That did not happen. It was South by Southwest, I don’t remember, maybe 1992. And we had decided we weren’t gonna play at the festival at that time. It was a thing for undiscovered bands to get discovered. So we’re like, we’d already gotten a record deal. So we’re like we’re, we’re just gonna chill. But the organizers convinced us that we should play, and they said, you can pick the night, you can pick the venue and you can pick the other bands that are gonna play with you, which is unheard of. So we’re like, okay, sure. We’ll play at our friend’s club on a Saturday night. And we have these two bands, friends of ours from Seattle that are gonna come to Austin for South by Southwest. So we’ll have them play with us. And it was gonna be, Nirvana was the opening act, the middle band was gonna be Cat Butt , which is another band from Seattle that was actually much more popular than Nirvana at the time. And then we were gonna headline the show. And about a month before South by Southwest, Kurt Cobain calls our guitar player and says, Hey man, I’m sorry. We’re not gonna be able to make it to South by Southwest because Cat Butt broke up. We were gonna kind of hitch a ride with them. Oh wow. We can’t afford to get to Austin on our own, so we’ll see y’all next time. And then like, the next time I heard anything from Nirvana was like on the radio, smells like Teen Spirit. So that was more exciting than the shows they did open for us, the one they did not open for us.
Dave DiBenedetto (06:05):
Wow. What, all right. Remind me of the name of the band.
Alvin Dedeaux (06:07):
It was Bad Mutha Goose and the Brothers Grimm.
Dave DiBenedetto (06:12):
I love it. Love it. Yeah. Who came up with that?
Alvin Dedeaux (06:15):
I have no idea. We sat around forever. So it was, it was, like I said, it was a straight up seventies style funk band. But we all came from the punk rock scene. So we played with a lot of punk rock bands. I mean, like, I don’t know if we ever played with the Butthole Surfers. That was another huge band from Austin. They would come to our shows and occasionally jump on stage with us and make noise, you know? So it was that era. So there was a lot of mixing. People used to say, if you turn the sound down at a Bad Mutha Goose show, you would think it was some crazy punk rock show. But the music was like Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament, Funkadelic, that type of stuff. But all original.
Dave DiBenedetto (06:55):
You were lead singer, guitarist.
Alvin Dedeaux (06:58):
What? I was definitely not the best singer, but I was the guy that stood in the middle and probably was the loudest , I guess I was the front man. I was more of an entertainer than a singer. And I, if you look it up on YouTube, I’m just gonna say parental advisory.
Dave DiBenedetto (07:16):
I can’t wait.
Alvin Dedeaux (07:17):
Not necessarily for lyrics, but for my personal banter with the audience in between songs, the songs were actually pretty pg but for some reason I had to take it to an R level most days.
Dave DiBenedetto (07:30):
Do you play anymore?
Alvin Dedeaux (07:32):
Not really, no. You know, in the car by myself on long road trips is about the only time I’ll sing. My kids don’t want to hear me sing. Occasionally I’ll pull out a old video or something and they’re just like, oh my God, dad. Although, I will say we made a music video in 1992 that I hadn’t seen until maybe the last year or so. And it was, I’m gonna say for sure the first, maybe the only time there was somebody in a float tube fly fishing and rapping. And that was me. I was in 1992.
Dave DiBenedetto (08:12):
Wow.
Alvin Dedeaux (08:12):
Fly fishing and rapping at the same time. It’s in the video. I was like, okay, well that’s pretty groundbreaking. So.
Dave DiBenedetto (08:18):
That’s cool.
Alvin Dedeaux (08:18):
Yeah. So I’m still fishing, but the music has gone by the wayside. I tell people I retired from that career a long time ago.
Dave DiBenedetto (08:26):
So you leave that world. And how quickly did you step into the fly fishing world as a guide, as a, you know, what was that transition like?
Alvin Dedeaux (08:35):
It was almost immediate because we were fortunate enough to make enough money to, to quit our day jobs, which was like a big deal for musician. But, you know, being in Austin that was during the Slacker era, my rent and bills for the month were like $225, you know, so, so I didn’t need to make a lot of money to quit the day job, but because we weren’t like a band that played every night, we played on the weekends and we went on tour and we made enough money to pay our bills. So I had most of my weekdays off. Ah, so I did a lot of fishing during the band years. Got it. I could show up at a gig in Dallas, drive my car to the gig with all my fishing gear, my camping gear, and leave Saturday night and be like, oh, by the way, I won’t be at practice this week ’cause I’m driving in New Mexico. I’m gonna fish all week and I will meet y’all at the next gig in Houston next Friday. Wow. So it was great. So I, I got to do a lot of fishing, but while I was doing that, I was hanging out if I was in town at the fly shop, the Austin Angler, where I really kind of got way more into it. I had some mentors there that taught me a whole lot of stuff about fly fishing. So I basically hung out there all the time. And when I got out of the band sort of abruptly, I just was like, I, I gotta do something else. But I did have some other musical options. I could have moved to San Francisco. There was another band that’s like, move out here and you won’t have to get a job or nothing. You’ll be living in San Francisco in a band. And had another deal in Seattle. And I was at the fly shop talking to the guy that owned the place. It was like going, man, I’m kind of at a crossroads, you know, it’s like, I quit my band, but I got these other options. And he just said, why don’t you work at the Fly Shop ? And I was like, what ? And he said, just try it out for six months. If you don’t like it, I’ll give you the best recommendation you’ve ever gotten . And I was like, well, I never got any recommendations , so, so it’ll be the best one. So he’s like, yeah, you hang out here all the time. You, you’ve listened to us for years now. You know everything we know. And I’ve actually thought multiple times about asking you to work at the shop, but I’ve, you’re like, this dude’s got way too much other stuff going on. But the thing was is I was like, hell yeah, , I’ll do it. . So I was at the shop almost immediately and, and was there for probably the last 10 years. The Austin Anglers shut down in July of 2004, you know, just started working the counter and then got to where I was the buyer, the manager, head guide, you know, all this stuff. And then September 11th happened, you know, we were, a lot of our business was based on guys traveling the world fishing that kind of petered out. And a lot of mom and pop fly shops shut down in that period. And we were one of the victims of that eBay and the internet. All that stuff happened. But fortunately, I had started guiding shortly after I started working there. So when the place closed down, I just kind of hit the ground running. So I had a, like a really long runway from a guy working at a shop to a guy that had a clientele built up, you know, enough to be able to just guide full-time.
Eddie Nickens (11:55):
Hey Alvin, let’s let, let’s go back a a little bit. ’cause you didn’t, you didn’t grow up in Austin, right? You grew up in Houston.
Alvin Dedeaux (12:03):
Houston, Yep. Yep. Mm-Hmm.
Eddie Nickens (12:05):
And you fished and you hunted. Tell us a little bit about growing up. Tell us a little bit about the ballet classes that you took.
Alvin Dedeaux (12:14):
Man, you guys did some research, didn’t you?
Eddie Nickens (12:17):
Hey, hey, we’re serious journalists here, Alvin. We ain’t messing around man.
Alvin Dedeaux (12:20):
Okay. So I was the first of six kids. My mom wanted to have six daughters. She was an only child. So she had me, and then she had five daughters after that. Wow. So I had a pretty interesting childhood just because my mom was really focused on the girls. So I took ballet lessons, I took tap lessons. Wow. I took piano, I took guitar. I didn’t want to do any of it. . But, you know, and my mom thought that was hilarious. Years later when, oh, so now you’re in a band. I bet you wish you would’ve taken those piano lessons a little bit more seriously. Maybe you wouldn’t have to just be the singer. You could be writing songs.
Eddie Nickens (13:07):
Make something outta yourself.
Alvin Dedeaux (13:09):
Yeah, yeah. Exactly. But then on the flip side, I fished with my grandmother and grandfather, my mom’s parents probably as much as I did with my dad and my dad. And my dad had an older brother and a younger brother that lived in Houston. They both had sons around my age. They grew up hunting and fishing. I mean, their dad in the swamps in Mississippi built wooden fishing boats and hand sewed fishing nets.
Dave DiBenedetto (13:39):
Wow.
Alvin Dedeaux (13:40):
So the whole fishing and hunting thing was like in my DNA basically. So I definitely was more into the fishing thing than the hunting. But, you know, I did tons of hunting growing up as a kid. Never shot a deer. But I don’t think on our deer hunting trips, I don’t think it was about so much shooting a deer as it was just going away and hiding out for a few days and drinking a bunch of beer, which is, you know, I, I can’t imagine that how great that must have been. My dad, his two brothers. Yeah. And then his two brothers, sons, you know, all of us out doing this cool stuff between the three of ’em, one of ’em always had a boat, so we’d fish together. That’s a pretty awesome time.
Dave DiBenedetto (14:21):
That’s pretty special. Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (14:22):
Yeah. Yeah.
Eddie Nickens (14:23):
And, and if I recall correctly, you, and I think we have this in common, you’re a, a self-taught fly angler, right?
Alvin Dedeaux (14:31):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eddie Nickens (14:32):
I was largely self-taught. I started fly fishing when I was 22. And Alvin, lemme tell you, I knew so little about fly fishing and trout. I I grew up in Eastern North Carolina. So I went to the mountains on my very first fly fishing trip. We were camping. I came back to camp to show off my first trout to my pals, and it was this little bitty fish, and it was kind of pale, but I was still stoked. And they said, dude, that’s a chub. So . Do you have any epic moments of early fly fishing success like that?
Alvin Dedeaux (15:06):
I got that first fly ride from my 12th birthday after I read about fly fishing in a book at school. It was a fishing book, and it just had like one chapter on fly fishing. And I was so taken by it that I actually stole the book, took it home so I could like reread it over and over. Wow. And just getting the fly rod and figuring out how to cast and tying some flies. I was really into like, model building. So I had all kinds of balsa wood and tools and paint and stuff. And like a couple of really early memories I have of actually being successful with the fly rod. I tied like a huge balsa wood frog fly that I contact, submitted a green rubber balloon to the balsa wood . I mean, it’s like, I wish I had it now, but I remember that distinctly. I was like 12 years old.
Dave DiBenedetto (15:57):
Wow.
Alvin Dedeaux (15:57):
Yeah. And I, and I caught a big old bass on that thing. ’cause I remember I was fishing with my grandpa and one of his buddies, my grandfather was a Baptist preacher, and so him and his preacher buddies had access to everybody’s stock tanks. Ah. You know, like, they’d like, yeah, Reverend Jones, you know, the anytime you want to go over there and fish. So they’d go over there and these things never got fished. And I remember we caught a bunch of, on the cane pole, caught a bunch of bass, and of course we were keeping them and eating them. And I was like, well, let me try this thing, you know, and my grandpa’s like, I mean, if they’re stupid enough to go for that, I’ll be impressed. You know, and I caught a, a big, I mean, at the time seemed like eight pounds. It was probably like a two pound fish, but I caught a huge bass on that balsa wood frog with a balloon rubber on it, you know, that was, that was one. And then I remember another time going with my dad and at least one of my uncles and, and one cousin maybe may have been the whole crew. And we were fishing in the Bay, Galveston Bay, or Trinity Bay, I can’t remember. And catching speckle trout. And we had a limit. So they were like, well, let’s head in. And I was like, whoa, whoa. Before we head in, let me get my fly rod out , you know? Yeah. And they were like, oh. So everybody went and sat on the other side of the boat and I got my fly rod out and started waving around. There were some school of fish, they weren’t mullet. I knew that much. There was some school of fish that came swimming through and I was just hooking them on every cast on my fly rod. Wow. Yeah. And then my uncle and my cousin and my dad were all like, oh my God, they were shocked. And I was like, yep. Told y’all.
Dave DiBenedetto (17:32):
That is too cool. I remember, yeah. My first fly rod fish was a sea trout under the lights. Oh yeah. On a little glass minnow thing that I think I pretended to tie, you know, I’d caught lots and lots of fish, but when you did it with a fly rod, wow.
Alvin Dedeaux (17:48):
Mm-Hmm.
Dave DiBenedetto (17:48):
You know, know, take it to a whole nother level. Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (17:51):
Yep. That’s, that’s phase one. That’s right. Just getting that, getting that first one on the fly.
Dave DiBenedetto (17:57):
So I feel like I’m pretty well versed in fishing and the opportunities around the country. And I gotta say I was really impressed and surprised by everything that Austin offers. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that.
Alvin Dedeaux (18:12):
Well, it’s definitely not a well-known fly fishing destination, but we have a really strong fly fishing community here. Number one, there’s a lot of people in Austin that fly fish all over the world, but we’ve got a lot of water. So, I mean, just in downtown Austin, Lady Bird Lake, which is a damned up portion of the Colorado, the people have caught 10 and 12 pound bass out of there.
Eddie Nickens (18:35):
Wow.
Dave DiBenedetto (18:36):
Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (18:36):
And that’s right in town. But then we’ve got the whole series of lakes above town. We’ve got five reservoirs, you know, within an hour of Austin. And then we’ve got kind of in the central part of the state, the hill country, we’ve got a ton of smaller streams and few bigger rivers. The Guadalupe River, the Brazos River, a little bit further north in the Colorado River, which is the lake that’s in the middle of downtown Austin. There’s a dam at the bottom end of town. And then there’s the Colorado River is free flowing for 300 miles to the coast. And then it’s about three hours to get to the coast. And then of course the Texas coast. Right, right. And there’s an endless amount.
Dave DiBenedetto (19:18):
Yeah. Legendary. Legendary. Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (19:20):
Yeah. Yeah. So we got some really amazing scenery in our little Guadalupe bass, our state fish, which is mostly just found in this central part of the state. I think that’s one of the things that’s helped me and, and our guide business be successful, is we just happened to be here in a place that has a lot of fishing that not a lot of people knew about. So we were able to kind of just jump in and go like, yeah, you don’t have to go to Montana. Montana’s great, but you know.
Dave DiBenedetto (19:46):
Right. I mean, you have trout, right?
Alvin Dedeaux (19:49):
We do. We have one trout stream. It’s a tailwater. It’s pretty well managed. They manage it as a trophy trout fishery.
Dave DiBenedetto (19:57):
Right.
Alvin Dedeaux (19:57):
And when conditions are right, there are holdover fish. There’s usually some holdover fish every year. Our issue with that is just water. You know, we need water in the lake so that there’s enough flow in the river. But that’s our wintertime fishery. So that’s the other thing about Austin and Texas in general is that we have year-round fishing. So the slowest time of year for most of our native fish is gonna be during the winter. And that’s prime time for the trout fishing. So, yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (20:29):
That’s nice.
Alvin Dedeaux (20:30):
Yeah. So it kind of keeps it going. What
Dave DiBenedetto (20:32):
About that Guadalupe Bass? That’s a fish I would love to catch. I love the native species and the, you know, the unsung, I don’t know a ton about it. I mean, does it grow as, as as large as a large mouth or more like a small mouth, or
Alvin Dedeaux (20:45):
It’s even smaller than the small mouth. Okay.
Dave DiBenedetto (20:47):
Got it. Alright.
Alvin Dedeaux (20:48):
Yeah, it’s a member of the spotted bass family. So they’re only found in Texas. They’re mostly just found in central Texas, and they are a stream fish. Like they have evolved in these small hill country streams. And there’s some real interesting facts about ’em is part of the reason they don’t grow very large is because they grow quickly. So I just found out some of this stuff recently, like they’re sexually mature at 1-year-old. Hmm. So like an old Guadalupe bass is like five or six years old, they don’t live a long time. Right. But the thing is, is these streams, we go through these drought and flood cycles where they’ll all get blown out one year ’cause the water’s flowing a hundred thousand CFS and then the next two years later you got two CFS and the streams dry up, but they can repopulate a stream like really quickly ’cause of that ability to spawn after just, you know, one year. So they are, like I said, mostly a stream fish. So they’re in the lakes that are, you know, the Colorado River chain. ’cause that’s also where the biggest Guadalupe bass are caught. But, you know, it’s almost like fishing for brookies in some high mountain stream, you know?
Dave DiBenedetto (22:01):
Ah. Which is a thing that Eddie and I love. Oh yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (22:05):
Yeah. So you could, you could come here and say like the Llano River or the San Marco River. Right. Some of the small streams with like a four weight and a foam hopper. And on a good day, 50 60 Guadalupe Bass. Yeah. It, it’s, it’s just so cool. It’s just like what you’re imagining, just like hopping from pool to pool and Yeah. You know, it’s pretty cool.
Eddie Nickens (22:25):
What I mean, it’s a gorgeous fish. I mean it’s like these tiger striped small mouth almost. And they’re spawning about now. Is that right? Next couple of months.
Alvin Dedeaux (22:35):
Yeah, yeah. You know, that’s, that’s, it’s kind of a mystery. So it’s funny, the thing about the Guadalupe bass is not a lot of stuff was known about ’em. I mean, they almost became extinct because back in the seventies or maybe even the late sixties, Texas Parks and Wildlife didn’t know any better and dumped small mouth in a bunch of the Guadalupe streams and they crossed, they started cross-breeding and they were like, these fish could be gone.
Eddie Nickens (23:02):
Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (23:02):
You know, if we don’t do something. So they had a really aggressive hatchery and stocking program to basically just overpopulate the streams with the Guadalupe DNA, which the first time that’s ever been tried and, and it’s worked. So they just kind of out competed the small mouth. So they’re pretty much gone in most places. But my favorite river, the Colorado River, which is our biggest stream, has the biggest Guadalupe Bass. And for the longest time, even the biologists thought the ones in that stream were hybrids because they were so much bigger than everywhere else, you know? Well, it’s the biggest river that they live in.
Dave DiBenedetto (23:38):
Right.
Alvin Dedeaux (23:39):
For the most part. So it makes sense. They’d be bigger. But a couple of the biologists were like, yeah, we think those are pure Guadalupe bass. And years ago told one of our guides, ’cause he was showing this biologist all these pictures like, Hey, if you catch another giant Guadalupe bass like that, you might want to keep it. And that’s actually what led to one of our clients catching I think somebody may have caught one larger recently, but the record for Guadalupe bass stood for 30 years.
Eddie Nickens (24:10):
Oh, wow.
Alvin Dedeaux (24:11):
And one of our clients on a trip caught this Guadalupe Bass. The guy’s like, Hey man, we need to hang on to that one. The guy’s like, nah, nah, nah, I ain’t killing this fish. So it was a long day, but they actually got that fish in perfect condition back to a ramp. They were met by a Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist.
Dave DiBenedetto (24:34):
Oh, love it.
Alvin Dedeaux (24:34):
Kept the fish alive, took it to the Cabelas, waited on their certified scale, put it in the tank at Cabelas. He got a tentative record. They didn’t give him a record until after they DNA tested the fish and said, oh, it’s a pure Guadalupe bass. Well, that was the beginning of a three year long Guadalupe bass survey on the Colorado River, which we learned a lot of stuff about them since then. But one of the first questions I’m looping back to what, what you said a long time ago about spawning. One of the first questions I asked the biologist when they started showing up on the river to do their testing, I was like, when do they spawn? And the biologist who was in charge of the Guadalupe bass survey said, we got no idea . He said, like, if you ask me when are the large mouth spawning in any lake in the state of Texas, I can tell you down to, you know, like the hour. He says, these river fish we know nothing about.
Eddie Nickens (25:30):
Wow.
Alvin Dedeaux (25:30):
He said, that’s part of why we’re here. ’cause that’s one of the things in Texas, and one of the things that’s kind of neat about these rivers, we have Texas Parks and Wildlife is always considered our rivers an underutilized resource. So there’s not a lot of access. You know, sometimes if there is access, it’s really long distance from a put in to a takeout. So, you know, you put a canoe in and you gotta cover 12, 15, 20, 25 miles before you get to another takeout. So most of our rivers do not get a lot of pressure. The Guadalupe, because of the trout fishing and the, and the way it’s been kind of set up a lot of pressure during the winter, but the vast majority of our Guadalupe bass dreams don’t see a lot of pressure. So they’re pretty mysterious little fish. So we’re still finding stuff out about ’em even now. Yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (26:19):
Man, I want to catch one. I’m putting that on my list. So how big was the fish?
Alvin Dedeaux (26:23):
It was 3.7 pounds. Okay. Not three pounds, seven ounces, those 3.7. Yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (26:29):
Got it.
Alvin Dedeaux (26:30):
Now I could be wrong, could be three pounds, seven ounces, but yeah. But I think since then there may be an IGFA all tackle record that’s three pounds, 11 ounces. And I, I don’t know if that’s pending or if that’s, you know.
Dave DiBenedetto (26:42):
Right.
Alvin Dedeaux (26:42):
The record, but under four pounds, you know?
Dave DiBenedetto (26:45):
Yeah. So. Got it. Yeah. And did that fish live happily ever after in the Cabela’s tank?
Alvin Dedeaux (26:49):
Well, so the guy who caught the fish, Brian Townsend, he’s a dermatologist here in Austin, he went to Cabela’s and he didn’t feel like they were sufficiently excited about having the fish there . So he’s like, I’m gonna go get the fish and take it back and put it back in the river.
Dave DiBenedetto (27:08):
Wow.
Eddie Nickens (27:09):
And did he wow.
Alvin Dedeaux (27:10):
Well, Parks and Wildlife found out about that. They took the fish to their fishery center out, out in Athens, Texas. And they kept the fish there until it died. And it lived out the rest of its life in like absolute fish luxury.
Dave DiBenedetto (27:26):
Yeah. I mean, this is a kid’s book in the making or something like that.
Alvin Dedeaux (27:30):
Yeah, yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (27:30):
Yeah. The luckiest fish alive. I love it.
Eddie Nickens (27:35):
Hey, Alvin, I have never been to the Texas Hill country, and I’m gonna be honest, I’m not super sure I know exactly what we’re talking about. I’ve heard about it forever and never and ever. Tell us about the Texas Hill country. Where is it? What is it? Why do you love it so much?
Alvin Dedeaux (27:51):
It’s kind of this area maybe as far south as like San Antonio, maybe as far north as Waco. And it is just, there’s a really, really diverse geological area in the central part of Texas. Like, they’re some of the oldest exposed rocks on the planet. Like there’s some rocks in the hill country that are like 1.5 billion years old, fairly arid, but lots of trees. It’s not like West Texas where it’s sagebrush and all that. We’ve got lots of live oaks and junipers and all kinds of stuff. On the rivers we’ve got cypress trees, which Oh wow. You would think of cypress trees. You’d think swamps, but yeah, especially like the Oasis River, which is one that’s really kind of picturesque full tunnel of cypress trees in places where, so like you’re fishing and you look up and it’s like, you might as well be in a cypress jungle in.
Dave DiBenedetto (28:41):
Wow.
Alvin Dedeaux (28:42):
You know, Louisiana swamps. It’s a really unique area. And my old joke was like, people think Texas is all hot, flat, and dry, and the vast majority of it probably is, but where we are is kinda like a little oasis there in the middle of the state.
Dave DiBenedetto (28:59):
Alvin. So you and I share some passions. One of them is our hatred of litter and trash. I mean, I can’t, I I see it, I pick it up everywhere I go in the boat. I mean, my kids know if we see something, we’re getting it. They’re now obsessed. Right. Plastic water bottles. I’m on a crusade against those things. Oh man. I mean, you really had an impact down there. Right. Tell us a little bit about what that program is.
Alvin Dedeaux (29:27):
So this will be our sixth event this year. And we’re calling it the LoCo Trash Bash, because the lower Colorado River is fondly known as the LoCo. Because it’s pretty wild, especially the section, you know, right next to Austin. But it all started on my birthday a few years back. I decided I owed it to the river to go out and just fill my boat up with trash. Yeah. Because I’ve had a lot of good times on that river, made a living on that river and I was like, I just owe it. So in celebration of my birthday, I’m gonna go out and pick up trash. And my wife went with me and we filled the boat up in no time. I mean, like filled it up and right then and there we were like, okay, this is bad. We gotta figure out something. So we started this trash cleanup and we focus on the first, depending on the year, maybe 40 or 50, maybe even 60 miles of river below Austin, the vast majority of all that garbage floating plastic bottles gets deposited there. Anytime there’s a high water event, all that stuff flushes out of the creeks and the streets because the Colorado River is in the middle of Austin and then it just goes downstream and we’re averaging like 10 tons of trash per cleanup.
Dave DiBenedetto (30:52):
Wow.
Alvin Dedeaux (30:53):
Yeah. Year number five, we went over 50 tons total. And as all volunteers we, you know, we average around 200 people. You know, everybody that shows up are, are people that use the river, whether they’re fishing or canoers or kayakers. For me, a big part of it is actually just trying to get more people out there. More people aware of it. You know, for the longest time, like I said, the rivers in Texas are kind of underutilized resource, and for the longest time you could go out there because we fish about the first a hundred miles of the river. And I, I used to jokingly say like, if there’s 10 boats on that, a hundred miles is total gridlock, . You know, like there’s just, there’s just not a lot of people out there.
Dave DiBenedetto (31:38):
Yeah. Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (31:38):
But, and which was great. But as the city of Austin has grown, there’s a lot more negative impacts on the river. I’m on a mission to get as many people as possible out there and aware of the fact that we have this river . Right. You know? Right. Because I take somebody fishing and we may cover 6, 8, 10 miles of river and if they’re from Austin, I’m like, I guarantee you, you can tell a hundred people that, you know in Austin that you went on the Colorado River and you caught a Guadalupe bass and you saw a bald eagle. And 95 of those hundred people are gonna be like, you went where and did what?
Dave DiBenedetto (32:17):
Right, right.
Alvin Dedeaux (32:18):
Like, you know.
Dave DiBenedetto (32:19):
Yeah. I mean that’s a, it’s a great point that has come up a few times in, in talking to other guides and folks passionate about the environment is you gotta know about it to care about it. Right?
Alvin Dedeaux (32:28):
Yeah. Yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (32:28):
And that’s what you’re doing. You’re putting people on a, something they haven’t seen. And typically when you’re on it or in it or whether, whatever it may be, it’s just so stunning and beautiful that you can’t help but care. Right. Yeah. It is.
Alvin Dedeaux (32:40):
Yeah, yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (32:41):
It’s a good way to do it.
Eddie Nickens (32:42):
Hey, Alvin, I know you’re also on the advisory board of Tomorrow’s Fish. Is that right? Yes. So that’s the campaign of the American Fly Fishing Trade Association that advocates in terms of a warming climate. Now, you know, you live in Texas and you’re advocating about save our winters. I mean, what kind of winters are you really trying to save out there all Tell us about these larger issues that go way beyond trash pickup on the LoCo.
Alvin Dedeaux (33:07):
Well, I mean, there’s not much winter here. There’s never been much winter here. But the, but what we’re feeling is much more hot and brutal and dry summers. So when we were talking earlier about the Guadalupe River, where we have the trout.
Eddie Nickens (33:23):
Mm-Hmm.
Alvin Dedeaux (33:24):
It’s a tailwater. And, and that, like I said, that is the most popular river fishery in the state of Texas. I, I’m going to just say that and I’m old, but I’m not that old. But I, I do remember when that river flow during the winter was, you know, three to 500 CFS. We’ve had winters where it never got below a thousand CFS because the lake is full and there’s water coming in the upper end of the river nowadays 50 CFS. I looked the other day, it was like 30 CFS. And so that impacts that fishery because in order for the water to stay cold enough for the trout to survive, they need about 150 to 200 CFS. Otherwise summertime comes and you know, they all die. Or the vast majority of ’em die. I would say the top two Guadalupe bass fisheries in, in my opinion, , are the Colorado River for size of fish. That’s where that record fish came from. And also really good numbers of fish. But the other one is the Llano river, hands down the best place to go and just catch a ton of Guadalupe Bass and some pretty good size one’s. Not as big as the Colorado. That river has been impacted by droughts as well. You know, I mean we had, average flows are probably 150, 200 CFS and you know, last couple of summers it got down to zero in places 20, 30 CFS. Luckily that fish is pretty hearty and shockingly we actually have pretty good numbers of fish still. But, but that’s the kind of stuff that we’re all worried about. The fact that we have these beautiful spring fed streams in the Texas Hill country is pretty amazing, but they’re all dependent on that water in the aquifers and the aquifers are getting lower. There’s more people moving to central Texas. And so that water gets used for, you know, different purposes, whether it’s cities, agriculture, and that’s taken away from the rivers. And we just need more people to advocate for the rivers. You know, people are doing stuff like, I’m a billionaire, former energy company, CEO, and I bought a huge piece of property on the upper Llano river and I’m gonna file a petition so that I can put a dam on my property and, and potentially shut down the flow of the river that guy got shut down.
Dave DiBenedetto (35:52):
Yeah. Good.
Alvin Dedeaux (35:53):
Not, not all of those guys, but that kind of stuff goes on just because people are not aware of what’s going on out there. So it’s just crazy to say, but more people out there on the water is at this point only going to help in the long run because we need more voices, we need more people who are going, that’s my favorite river. I need to take care of it. You know.
Eddie Nickens (36:16):
Hey, lemme break in here. For listeners that may not know, CFS is cubic feet per second. So that’s sort of a measurement.
Alvin Dedeaux (36:22):
Yeah.
Eddie Nickens (36:23):
Of a flow. You can imagine a a cubic foot foot, a foot by foot of water would be one. So when you’re getting down to a river as being fed by 20 CFS, it ain’t much of a river.
Dave DiBenedetto (36:34):
I mean it’s, that’s a trickle.
Alvin Dedeaux (36:35):
No, that’s a trickle. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eddie Nickens (36:38):
Hey, let’s, let’s move south, let’s move to the coast.
Dave DiBenedetto (36:42):
Yeah. Let’s talk salt.
Eddie Nickens (36:45):
Smack down on the coast. Texas redfish versus Louisiana redfish. Go, Alvin.
Alvin Dedeaux (36:54):
Alright. I had somebody the other day email and say I want to go during the, the bull redfish run and catch some redfish in Texas. And we do have bull redfish, but it’s not like the Louisiana thing. So I always tell people that Texas coast redfishing is probably a lot more like bone fishing than Louisiana coast redfishing. It’s unbelievable the amount of clear shallow water that we have in Texas and the juvenile redfish that lived there year round. Just an amazing resource. And on a eight way, you know, with 25 inch redfish is a 25 inch redfish. You know.
Eddie Nickens (37:38):
I apologize.
Alvin Dedeaux (37:39):
For a minute. It’s still a good fish. Yeah. And I fish in Louisiana. Louisiana is awesome. You can go over there and catch some giant reds. But the thing is most of the time you’re not gonna be site casting to ’em in, you know, 18 inches of crystal clear water. That’s the thing I think Texas has over Louisiana. It’s just the site casting the clear water. And because we do have the barrier island system and we’re fishing in shore, a lot of the stuff in Louisiana, I mean, you know, everybody’s like, if you’re going to Louisiana, especially during the prime season, you better have like at least three or four days and plan on not fishing half of them ’cause you’re gonna get bad weather. We typically have a little bit more stable weather and you know, in our redfish they’re there basically year round. So I think there’s a lot more opportunities to have a long stretch of stable weather on the Texas coast as well. And we do occasionally get some big fish moving into the flats. You know, especially if you’re fishing areas that are close to a pass, especially like Port O’Connor, Texas, that’s probably the best place to go catch a bull red fish in Texas because they’ve got a really good pass there if conditions are right. And you can get out, you can catch bulls in the morning or stay there, catch all day and then you can get back in the back country and catch smaller fish in super shallow water. Variety, I think is one of the things that’s cool about Texas. We got some variety.
Dave DiBenedetto (39:06):
You heard it here T. Edward, Texas wins the smack downs.
Eddie Nickens (39:10):
Well on here. And you know, the good thing is is, I mean his anglers, we got it all, man. You know, there’s so much out there.
Alvin Dedeaux (39:15):
Yeah, yeah. You just gotta do a little bit of everything. You know, if you want to catch a bunch of big old redfish, you need to go to Louisiana.
Dave DiBenedetto (39:24):
So Alvin, you have two kids, right?
Alvin Dedeaux (39:26):
Three.
Dave DiBenedetto (39:27):
Three. Okay. How old are they?
Alvin Dedeaux (39:30):
10, 14 and 25.
Dave DiBenedetto (39:33):
Okay. And do they fish, are they eaten up with it like you or are they.
Alvin Dedeaux (39:38):
So the 25-year-old all girls. Okay. The 25-year-old actually works for the guide service. Cool. So if you send us an email, she’s probably answering your email, booking your trip and all that. And she’s gotten pretty good at rowing the boat. So Nice. Yeah. So she can fish. She knows the business inside and out so she knows all about everything. Fly fishing wise. Mm-Hmm. The 14-year-old, she likes to go. Yep. The fishing part, she could take it or leave it, but you know, she never complains about going. Right. She just, she likes being out there. And then the 10-year-old is kind of like our angler. She
Dave DiBenedetto (40:13):
Really? Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (40:14):
Ever since she was a little kid, she, I mean like, she’s still a little kid, but ever since she was like six she would fish all day. Catching, not catching. She may have changed her mind like kids do, but at one point she said when she grew up she was gonna be a mom and a fishing guide.
Eddie Nickens (40:31):
Nice, nice. Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (40:32):
So.
Dave DiBenedetto (40:33):
That is terrific. Well done buddy. I don’t care what else you do. That’s well done.
Eddie Nickens (40:39):
Hey, tell me about the Devil’s River. Did you run the devil’s? I did, I did one trip on the Devil’s. What a spot. Holy cow.
Alvin Dedeaux (40:47):
Yeah. That is probably the most pristine river in the state. I’ve done a bunch of trips out there over the years. Right now we’re doing a trip. Our guide service is doing a trip. We got a great connection and we have access to the ranch, the headwaters of the Devil’s River. It’s the Hudspeth Ranch. This ranch has been, I wanna say this lady’s family maybe homesteaded this property like the Indians owned it before they did. So we’ve got the first seven miles of the river that are all contained within the ranch. And we, we’ve been doing trips out there the last few years. It’s, it can be a lot of work though. The wind starts blowing upstream and you’re trying to get downstream.
Eddie Nickens (41:36):
We had, we had wind. We were in a, we were in folding kayaks and camping, but the trip was also sponsored and nothing against Tenkara, but was sponsored by a Tenkara company . So if you can imagine fishing the Devil’s River and howling wind with a freaking.
Dave DiBenedetto (41:56):
With a cane pole.
Eddie Nickens (41:56):
With a freaking Tenkara rod.
Alvin Dedeaux (42:00):
Did y’all catch anything?
Eddie Nickens (42:01):
God man, I’ll tell you, here’s how we, here’s how we caught stuff. Alvin, my buddy and I, we saw the wind forecast and we’re like, this is gonna be horrible. So we jumped into the Walmart, I think in Del Rio. Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (42:15):
Yeah.
Eddie Nickens (42:15):
On the way out and bought like the cheapest little spinning rods that we could hide. ’cause the Tenkara people weren’t gonna be happy about it . And and so we were like, when they were around we’d be dabbling the Tenkara rods, but they turned their back man. We were whipping out, we were whipping out the beetle spins ’cause that was all we could find at the Walmart . But it was a wild place, you know, the petroglyphs on the walls, it just, yeah. But, but man, what I would have done for a six weight, wooh.
Dave DiBenedetto (42:44):
Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (42:46):
The go-to I think for our guys is a seven ’cause we throw some big crawfish patterns.
Eddie Nickens (42:51):
Yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (42:52):
The guy whose first fly was a balsa wood balloon frog.
Alvin Dedeaux (42:56):
Yep. Yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (42:57):
I’m not surprised You throw big patterns.
Alvin Dedeaux (42:59):
Yep, yep.
Eddie Nickens (43:01):
You know, your balloon frog wasn’t the last, the last thing you designed. You’ve got a popper. Right. Tell us about that.
Alvin Dedeaux (43:08):
The Dedeaux Popper.
Eddie Nickens (43:08):
Yeah, the Dedeaux popper. Let’s hear it.
Alvin Dedeaux (43:10):
So that one was kind of a offshoot from one that I used to call the Flip-flop popper. Right. And I was out on the Llano River and we were just loading the boat up and I looked down and there’s this chartreuse flip flop just floating down the river, just one. And I picked it up, you know, trash.
Dave DiBenedetto (43:33):
Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (43:33):
Throw it in the truck. And then I got home and I was about to throw it in the trash and I was like, that’s the perfect color for a frog popper. So I made a bunch of ’em with that. And, and of course they worked and for a while there we were hitting all the dollar stores, buying the cheap flip flops and carving them . But my whole thing with tying flies, if it takes more than, you know, five minutes, I’m just like, oh God, this is too much trouble. Especially when, you know, you clients throw ’em up in the tree. Right. And you lose them. So I figured out a way to make a popper with two sheets of flat foam and it’s mostly just super glued.
Dave DiBenedetto (44:12):
Mm-Hmm.
Eddie Nickens (44:13):
Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (44:13):
You know, there’s like a very little bit of fly tying involved. You tie the tail on and then everything else is glued. And that has been one of the best poppers. It casts really well. And just the way the front of it is designed, it makes a big pop without having to throw a giant popper. So you can throw something on a six weight that will make as much noise as a popper you’d throw on a 10 weight. And it’s super popular around here ’cause we’ve all caught tons of fish on ’em. And then people who just get into fly tie and it’s really easy to make. And you get out there and they work in, the guys over there at Blue Line Fly Company are actually going next year to start selling them commercially.
Dave DiBenedetto (44:53):
Cool. Are they gonna call it the Dedeaux Popper? Yeah. Oh.
Alvin Dedeaux (44:56):
Yeah. Yeah.
Dave DiBenedetto (44:57):
Yes. That’s really congrats man. That’s cool. One thing I’ve learned in during this interview is just the diversity of the types of water that you have there in Austin. And I’m curious, let’s just say you’ve got the day off and we know you’re gonna go fishing on that day off. What’s your ideal day?
Alvin Dedeaux (45:18):
Well right now it’ll, it’ll depend.
Dave DiBenedetto (45:22):
Okay.
Alvin Dedeaux (45:22):
I’m going fishing tomorrow with a couple of our guides for fun , and we’re gonna go hit the Colorado River.
Dave DiBenedetto (45:27):
Right.
Alvin Dedeaux (45:28):
But then come May, I will have my trailer all set up down in Rockport and the day off I’ll be chasing some redfish.
Dave DiBenedetto (45:36):
Nice.
Alvin Dedeaux (45:37):
So that’s That’s coming. Yeah. So.
Dave DiBenedetto (45:40):
I like it.
Alvin Dedeaux (45:40):
You know, like one of our guides has really gotten a really good program down fly fishing for bass on the lakes.
Dave DiBenedetto (45:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (45:50):
And I’ve always been a river person, but I’ve been fishing with him on the lake the last couple years and I was like, man, that’s pretty awesome too. So if he called me up and said, Hey, let’s hit the lake tomorrow, I’d go do that.
Dave DiBenedetto (46:04):
You’d go, yeah, yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (46:04):
Oh yeah. For sure. For sure. And that’s the thing, people always ask me, well, what’s your favorite destination? Or what’s on your bucket list? Or what’s your favorite place to go fishing? And my answer is usually wherever I’m going next.
Dave DiBenedetto (46:19):
Yes, yeah. People ask, are you a fly fisherman? Or, I’m like I love to fish. Any way I can catch those fish. I just, I love fishing.
Eddie Nickens (46:28):
I mean, it’s tough to see all the new people on the water sometimes and you’re in your favorite spot, but it’s good that the tents getting bigger. For sure, Alvin. And I’m curious, you know, as a black fishing guide, as a black entrepreneur, was there a time when you felt outside the tent? How did you navigate those waters? Or, or maybe, maybe they weren’t as difficult as, as others?
Alvin Dedeaux (46:55):
Well, I think, and I was thinking about this the other day there’s been some like overt times where I was like, okay, that’s, that’s just happening ’cause I’m black. You know?
Eddie Nickens (47:04):
Right.
Alvin Dedeaux (47:04):
That wouldn’t be happening otherwise. I think I was lucky because I was always kind of like the outsider. I was the only boy in a house full of girls a lot of times. I was the only black kid at the school, you know? So the fact that I was the only black dude with the fly rod, I mean, I’ve just, for better or worse, I kind of grew up with this outsider loner mentality. So when things weren’t going my way for whatever reason, I just assumed like, ah, that’s just how it is. So I was lucky to have that, and that’s kind of kept me going and kind of kept me going against all odds. But, you know, part of me putting myself out the way I have was also to help other people who were not as fortunate, you know? And, and that’s one of the greatest compliments I’ve gotten from young black anglers, women anglers, just people who are not the typical person you think of when you think of an outdoor person. People have cited me as like, well, I saw Alvin out there and I said, well, hell man, he’s, you know, he looks like me. He can do it. That’s, then I can do it.
Dave DiBenedetto (48:15):
That’s cool.
Alvin Dedeaux (48:15):
And I’ve, I’ve had a couple of people say that in interviews, like, people that I didn’t even know, you know? So I was like, that’s really awesome. And so, you know, I think it’s just part of the whole tents getting bigger and I think it’s up to all of us to try to welcome more people to it. And, and like you said, it is kind of tough, the fact that there was never anybody on the Colorado River. And it was like my private hundred mile stretch of awesome fishing was great. But I also realized as Austin has gotten bigger, more people and more industry have moved to this little part of Texas, our little river, it’s not gonna make it if we don’t have more people out there trying to take care of it. I can scream to the top of my lungs. I can put out videos on YouTube and everywhere else on the internet every day, but I can’t do it by myself. So I do feel like we just need to get more people in general, more diverse crowd out there just to take care of this stuff that we got. It’s fragile. It’s time to just get as many people out there and give as many people concerned about this as we can. And, you know, we’re just gonna have to learn how to share.
Dave DiBenedetto (49:26):
Right.
Alvin Dedeaux (49:26):
That’s all there is to it.
Dave DiBenedetto (49:27):
Right? I mean, we’re, we’re better together. There’s no question about it. Right?
Alvin Dedeaux (49:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re just gonna have to learn how to share.
Dave DiBenedetto (49:33):
Understand pressure, I mean, yeah, yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (49:35):
I would rather see a lot of pressure from a lot of like-minded anglers as opposed to a lot of pressure from industries that want to just destroy.
Dave DiBenedetto (49:45):
Right.
Alvin Dedeaux (49:46):
The natural resources. So, you know, let people get out there and play and they’ll be ready to keep an eye on it and take care of it. Long after I gone, I’m, I, I want my 10-year-old to be able to go out there and fish that river and have the same experience that I’m having now. So what if there’s more people out there? As long as the water’s still clear and clean and the fish are still happy, then I’ll be happy.
Dave DiBenedetto (50:08):
Nice man. Alvin, I knew you were a cool dude when I was doing research on you, but I didn’t know you were this cool. This has been fun. I wanna come to the Trash bash. I want to catch a Guadalupe bass. I appreciate what you’re doing, man. I really do.
Alvin Dedeaux (50:21):
Well, thanks for having me. It’s, it was fun.
Eddie Nickens (50:24):
This has been fabulous, Alvin, we so much appreciate you spending time with us and shining a light on a little part of a big old state that just looms so large in the Southern presence. Man, we couldn’t have asked for a better ambassador for that. We appreciate it.
Alvin Dedeaux (50:39):
Well, the best thing about it is that I am having fun. So.
Dave DiBenedetto (50:43):
Yeah. Yeah.
Alvin Dedeaux (50:43):
So, you know, all this stuff is cool, but at the end of the day, I’m pretty happy. So I guess that means I’m doing the right thing.
Dave DiBenedetto (50:57):
I’d say he’s doing the right thing. How about you T. Edward.
Eddie Nickens (51:02):
Man, doing the right thing and raising the bar. You know, when you think about what he’s done for conservation, it really does inspire the rest of us to take care of the places we love.
Dave DiBenedetto (51:12):
Absolutely. I mean, you know, anybody who’s picking up trash is close to my heart. That man is special.
Eddie Nickens (51:19):
He is. You know, and if you want to learn more about Alvin, he has a really strong presence on, on YouTube, just punch in Alvin Dedeaux. You’re gonna learn a lot. You’re gonna laugh a lot, and you’re gonna get to know this guy even better.
Dave DiBenedetto (51:35):
All right, my friend. That’s it for this episode. Wild South comes to you from Garden and Gun Magazine. This episode was produced and edited by Christine Fennessy with music by our longtime friends and terrific fishermen, Woody Platt and Bennett Sullivan. You can find us wherever you get your shows.
Eddie Nickens (51:55):
And when you do find us, leave us a review. We’d love to hear what you think. We care about your thoughts. These reviews matter.
Dave DiBenedetto (52:04):
They do. They do. And we’re readers, so we’re gonna read ’em. Alright, from here in Charleston, I’m Dave DiBenedetto.
Eddie Nickens (52:10):
And here in Raleigh, North Carolina, Eddie Nickens. We’ll see you next time on The Wild South.
Also see:
G&G’s 2023 Champions of Conservation: Alvin Dedeaux
Wild South credits:
Producer and editor: Christine Fennessy
Music: Woody Platt and Bennett Sullivan
Artwork: Lars Leetaru
Transcripts editor: Katherine Jarvis
