Today on Outdoor Nevada, we return to the Pioneer Saloon.

We spend time with the new guy, Nate.

He's running the day-to-day and honoring the historic roots of the saloon.

It's a new look at an old favorite.

We'll also meet Brendan Gaughan, the retired NASCAR driver with a legendary Las Vegas family lineage.

He's bringing a special kind of "shine" to the Pioneer.

Then we head to Laughlin, where we fish and float the river.

It's a great day with new friends and a fishing guide who's full of wise advice.

All this today on Outdoor Nevada.

♪♪♪ Nevada.

It's an adventure waiting to happen.

Waiting for you.

What do you say, you ready?

Because I am.

♪♪♪ (John Burke) You know, there's nothing like hitting the open road, seeing an old friend and making a new one at the same time.

Now, in this case I'm back at the Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings, Nevada, but there's a new sheriff in town.

His name is Nate, and he's got his own perspective on this classic spot.

♪♪♪ My name is Nate Kaup here at the Pioneer Saloon, and I'm the new general manager.

The first time I walked through here, I think it was about 10, 12 years ago, and actually how it started was some buddies just had some Razors, and it started out as hey, let's go take a little road trip, and let's go out to this old bar.

Okay, let's get into it and do it.

So we drive out here, we pretty much-- a lot of people from Vegas, we drive out from the Blue Diamond Saloon.

It's about a 15-mile ride out here so, you know, about 45 minutes.

We got out here and I still didn't know what to expect but being from the Midwest, when I walked in, it definitely had the old style, the old feeling, kind of the country.

You almost kind of felt like-- the stuff on the floor was from early 1900s.

You just had that feeling or the smell, and for me personally, it really reminded me actually of being back in the Midwest and back at home, and it was a really comfortable feeling that you get out here.

Even though it's so old, you feel a part of it.

I think that's the really exciting part out here.

This place is pretty old, it's 107 years old, and 1913 is when this place is actually-- when it was here.

This town or this bar was one of the main watering holes for just Goodsprings and Jean, and this literally kind of fed Vegas back in the day.

There was about 4,000 people out here, and Vegas, there were probably-- let's call it 50.

This was literally kind of if you needed anything, supplies, you actually came out here and vice versa from Vegas.

So this was the spot.

When you come out here every day, you open up the doors, you do feel like you're taken back in time.

I think that is the biggest thing.

There's just something about here that it's no longer Vegas.

You really are in your own world out here.

This is what I really like.

I almost feel like, you know, the old-school things that are out here, and I think that's really exciting.

It definitely puts you-- it puts you back a little bit.

It's fun.

Yeah, I don't want to change what's really just worked for 107 years out here at the Pioneer Saloon.

I think that's important.

It is really kind of timeless.

It's 107 years old, and we're still out here.

People are looking at just the history, and the history hasn't changed.

It's still here, and people-- like I said, the generations are loving the stories of it.

And hearing them then tell their family and friends that they bring out here, that's exciting for us too, knowing it's living on in multiple generations.

I think it's really cool.

Last week I had people from Australia; I get people from Europe.

Yeah, there's not one thing, and they know the story.

We can talk about the bullet holes up there.

We've talked about the burn holes, the ghost stories, because we have the ghost stories also.

Yeah, we have people from all over the world.

They almost tell me what they have, what they heard, their experiences out here and just even over the years.

It's exciting.

It's kept its unique mark out here for sure.

Everything out here, it kind of takes you back in time.

You know, being around, we're close to Vegas, all the newness, the lights, the glamour and all that.

This is really holding back to the early 1900s out here.

We have the double doors right there.

Even opening those things, you can just feel almost the age with that one.

Theey're creaky, they make a lot of noise, and yeah, when people walk in or just look around, even the ceilings, the walls, just the old bar you can kind of see them putting themselves back in the day, what that looked like, the feel of it.

You can almost see the excitement really in their face of what am I really looking at?

You know, taking it all in.

You see people look for a few minutes, and then they almost retake a look and then they really notice that everything is pretty much in the original phase that it started.

You know, like I said, back to even the register, like I didn't even recognize that.

So that is just, you know, seeing them take in the bar, the experience, it's just everything about it.

Their eyes as they walk around, it's like a dazed look but excited look the whole time.

It's fun seeing it too.

So this bar was built in 1860, and it was sent over and was actually-- you can kind of see little spots right here.

That was actually done by Brunswick, which was the old pool tables I think we're most familiar with, and this was shipped over on a train.

This was railed here back in the day.

So this is actually two different pieces that they brought over here, and you can also see the little inlays.

Those were all done back in the same thing, early 1800s.

Those glass were all built back then.

This is the original footstool they had on.

This is completely brass.

You can see it spits out a few feet on here.

A lot of stories on there, but yeah, this is actually the original brass on there and still holding up, still holding up, surprisingly.

Yeah, I'd like to bring back the bar a little bit.

I think it needs to bring back to what's new and I guess from the old glory of it.

Yeah, to kind of-- everybody loves looking at it, but there's no reason not to kind of pretty it up, put a little lipstick on her, I think.

But yeah, I think, you know, bring it back to give it a little bit of life is kind of what the place is looking for, needs a little bit, a little love.

That potbelly stove, yeah, that's an original from here, and this baby heats up this entire place.

It gets hot, and it's amazing how people absolutely love it.

They're so excited to put fire in these big potbelly stoves.

Then you can see our cash register over there, and that was from also a department store.

You have your four drawers that they have, and if you look at it, that entire top part is all brass.

I mean, everything was hand-done, you know, things were done really right back then.

There are a lot of beautiful old pieces back here that were-- you know, trying to bring it back to just its old glory I guess is really what we're trying to do.

It's just one of those-- You come out here and you really feel like you're not in Vegas.

It's just a unique experience every single time out here, and I can't say it's just bikers or Razors.

You get guys out here in suits, and it's the most diverse crowd out here.

It's super fun; it's exciting.

Thanks, Nate.

You know, every time I come here I meet a friendly face, and I also learn a little something new.

This time around, not only did I meet Nate, I met Brendan Gaughan.

I got to know him and a thing or two about the local moonshine.

Tell me about your NASCAR career.

(Brendan Gaughan) I mean, it's short.

It wasn't as successful as I wanted it to be.

I raced NASCAR for over 20-plus years, won championships early on in my career, and I've had an amazing run.

I mean, 23 years of the top three levels of NASCAR, and I had a brilliant time.

I met a lot of great friends, came out with a business idea from it and, you know, I was lucky.

I mean, I got to be a professional athlete for 20 years of my life and race cars for a living.

Do you know how-- I've cleaned bathrooms in our casinos.

I've worked in the hotel towers in our casinos.

I didn't have a job the last 20 years.

I just had fun.

-So how long have you been working with the Pioneer Saloon?

-We've been doing this with them for about two years now.

They've been using our stuff to fill the barrels, and we're-- look, I grew up as an off-roader, like I was saying.

I've been coming to the Pioneer for a long time, so for me I didn't care if it was a moneymaker.

I just thought it was cool, but the CLS is in the barrel.

I think it's awesome.

Half these guys, like I said, the 01, I'll pick on them because I know they're there.

But a bunch of these guys, I know them, they know me, we grew up together.

They're off-roaders, they come riding now here.

They got their barrels.

They love to go oh, hey, I was drinking your stuff earlier today.

You know, they have fun with it, we have fun with it, and that's what it's supposed to be about is having a good time, coming out, getting yourself a ghost burger, having a drink of your own and then spending some time with friends.

-Now, you've used the word whiskey, but you've also said moonshine.

Let's talk about that.

-We're a moonshine.

What that means is we are a liquor that is not aged; so we don't age it.

We come right out of the pipe and you make original, which is clear, but then every flavor we make-- we have flavors-- starts as original and then we add profiles from there.

-So basically the aging comes down to their responsibility.

You're going to age it as long as you want to.

You provide the moonshine.

-Absolutely.

Now, as far as Nate's concerned though, he wants you to come drink it.

He don't want you to let this age long.

I mean, that's where accelerated aging chips come in.

This is new technology.

Come on, this is the 21st century.

You can age it as long as you want in the barrel.

-Okay.

First of all, the idea of coming to the Pioneer Saloon and having moonshine, to me, that's your story.

That is like-- -I think that's pretty much a cliche right there.

-Yeah.

What did you do this weekend?

-Went to the Pioneer, a place that on the barrels, you'll see it says "established 1913."

I am sure you have talked ad nauseum right now about 1913.

The bullet holes in the side of the building from the card game.

Everybody knows the stories.

You think during Prohibition, there might have been a few things of moonshine drank out here?

-A couple.

-I'm sure there was.

So for me, I think it's cool.

-If I get a barrel and I want to bring my friends over, how long should I let it, you know... -You know, let it sit in the barrel for a month or so.

I mean, at least you get a little color to it, you're going to get a little bit of that barrel in there.

We're talking to Nate and the guys about maybe bringing in some fancy barrels with maybe some different chars, maybe some different oaks just to give another option than just the one barrel.

-Does that matter?

-Oh, absolutely.

I mean, why do you drink Jim Beam versus Jack Daniels versus Bulleit?

It's not just because of the grains they use, but because of the barrels they age in.

And the craft whiskey business has become oh, my gosh big where you have peat-smoked moss and all these different things people do now, and a lot of that comes from the barrel.

So we're going to try to give maybe a little option on some more fun barrels, maybe try to change our profiles.

And also I mentioned the accelerated aging chips.

They now sell basically wood chips that you can put in barrels that accelerate the aging process, which is fun.

-So let me ask you this: Let's say I get a barrel or my friends go in on a barrel and we have our barrel, but we don't know what we're doing.

Can we find you?

What do we do?

-Oh, I mean, you can talk to Nate or I'm sure the bartenders here.

They can guide you and, you know, tell us what you like and we can put you in that direction.

They can come to us.

Our distillery, we're only about 10 miles away from here in Vegas.

You know, we're at 17A, that's the name of the company, is over the hill.

So I mean, we're not far away.

Come in to us and we can show you.

I mean, there's a young lady out here that has her name, the "Fruity Kitty."

I guarantee you, she's got fruit in that barrel.

She's aging it with whatever flavor fruit she wanted.

We can teach you how to do that.

So if you want to have a goofy flavor, we can work on that.

If you just want to have a whiskey, drop an accelerated age chip in it, we're going to make that for you.

We can teach you all sorts of things.

-You know, if I'm going to be drinking moonshine, I want it to be with a guy that's been in NASCAR.

I don't know, they just go together.

-Bad cliche, but it's there.

I mean, that's where I got it from.

I mean, literally this came from an official who was wanting to retire to a driver who loved his product, allegedly, that was getting ready to retire, and I said let's go have some fun, and we moved it out here.

-Tell me about what the Pioneer Saloon and what you're doing means-- it means to Las Vegas, it means to the community.

I mean, it's more than just fun.

-Look, the Pioneer, as I said, established in 1913.

When you think of Las Vegas, Nevada, when you think of this piece of desert, not many things were here in 1913.

So I mean, this is a piece of history that our desert has.

Now, what's cool is the offroad community is big in Southern Nevada, and we've been coming here for decades riding our buggies back here, riding our motorcycles on the dirt, pulling right up to the back here.

The Pioneer is kind of part of this Vegas community that goes back all the way through the Prohibition Era, the moonshine era.

I mean, this is a lot of real history around here, and as you've been told, there's three bullet holes.

That's not those guys poking an icepick through a wall saying hey, look.

No, that's three bullet holes that has a real story.

I mean, Vegas was an old wild west town, and the fact that the locals, real locals, old-school locals, every one of us knows about the Pioneer.

-And that is exactly what draws people that aren't locals to here, and you're okay with that.

-Guys like you.

The reason why you guys are here doing a show on it is because this is a famous old-school place that people love to hear about.

Now, us locals loved it to be our nice little quiet hiding spot, but there's a certain point where hey, we're businessmen, we're entrepreneurs, we can only keep something so quiet when it's really good.

We want people to know it's here.

We want you to know that they have great burgers and great food.

We want you to know there's a famous old bar, careful where you walk, it's pretty creaky in there.

We want you to know there's moonshine in barrels out here, that you can still drink moonshine in a place from the early 1900s.

This is a famous piece of Vegas, you know, lore.

-From a marketing standpoint, do you get people going, moonshine... -Oh, absolutely.

-Am I even allowed to drink that?

-The first problem you have is people go moonshine, oooh, puts hair on your chest, run your car on it.

You know, immediately that's the first thing you're thinking.

You know you are too.

You know when you said moonshine, you went oh, man.

It's just that's the first reaction.

So it takes some time to get people over that.

Fortunately, guys like Nate in the Pioneer, they're bartenders.

They know to tell people settle down, try a shot, you know, and you're going to be pleasantly surprised when you do.

-There's nothing that locals want more than to socialize with each other, and there's nothing that outsiders want more than to integrate.

The Pioneer Saloon does that, and it does it through your product.

So I think that's really terrific, and I want to thank you for taking time to explain all this today.

-Appreciate it, honored to be part of the Pioneer history, and don't worry.

You'll see me here on weekends with my Razor parked outside mingling with those people from in town and out of town.

-There's cups here, and there's bottles.

That's all I'm saying.

-Not gonna say that there's people around here that might not want a shot, but salty caramel is pretty good.

-We're going with salty caramel.

Thank you very much, man, really appreciate your time.

-Thank you.

♪♪♪ I tell you, it sure is great when people in Nevada come together to socialize and enjoy a little bit of their own history and openly welcome people from all over.

That's where the Pioneer Saloon comes in.

You ought to stop by.

You look like the kind of folks that'll fit right in.

♪♪♪ She's a beaut, isn't she?

The mighty Colorado River starts in the Rockies, cuts a path through the American Southwest before finishing up in the Sea of Cortez down in Mexico.

And it brings with it irrigation, life and plenty of outdoor activities, like fishing in Laughlin, Nevada.

♪♪♪ We launched first thing in the morning and made our way up the river towards Davis Dam.

I was partnered with a great crew: Kenny, Joe and Rusty.

Now, Kenny and Joe are great company but Rusty, he was something else.

Rusty is a guide and owner of the local bait and tackle shop, and his knowledge of knots, hooks and lures, and fish, is incredible.

The guy immediately puts you at ease and lets you truly enjoy every moment.

It's like hanging out with a wise old sage of the river.

His love of the river and fishing is infectious.

Are you a hook 'em and cook 'em or a catch and release type guy?

(Rusty Braun) I like to keep the fish that I catch, even like the small ones, right?

An example, up above the lake, there's no limit under 20 inches, right?

So you want to keep the smaller ones so the bigger ones will grow.

A lot of people say no, you keep the small-- you throw the small ones back so they'll grow big.

-How do you eat them?

How do you prepare them, are you a good cook?

-I try to be.

There is just-- with the stripers, that's what-- a lot of people have never ate striped bass before, the stripers.

It's a white fish, and you just can't do anything wrong with them.

You can boil them, bake them, barbecue, you know, fish tacos.

There's all kinds of great recipes for those things there.

-All right.

So we're good to go?

-We're good to go.

-Let's catch a fish.

-Let's catch a fish.

-What's the biggest fish you ever caught?

-Me?

I'm still in the five or six pound range.

I haven't caught the larger ones.

-What's the key to catching a fish?

-Fishing.

Fishing on the days when they're out there.

It's like what we're doing right now, see?

So you have the glide bait.

This usually produces a lot more fish, and mine's a top water.

Like what Kenny was saying, certain times of the year you want to be with the glide, something goes down a little bit and not so much as top water.

It's just when this one works, it's fun because it's all top-water action.

Whereas that one, it's under the water.

If there's a fish, he's just gonna swim off with the darn thing, and then you got a good fighting one on there.

-You're just putting pressure on me.

You said mine catches more fish.

You're just putting pressure on me.

-It does.

It's more of a-- it's actually going to catch more fish.

-What do you like about this, coming out here fishing?

-Just to come out fishing.

It doesn't matter if you catch anything.

It's just fun to kind of get away a little bit, enjoy the water.

Floating on the water on a boat is just-- it's a kick in the pants.

-You know what, really you come out here and what's really striking is the clarity of this water.

I mean, pristine.

-Yeah.

And again, that's because the dams have filtered it over the years.

It used to be before the dam, this was muddy like the muddy Mississippi.

It didn't have the filtration system to it.

-Well, you would never know that now.

-No.

-So tell me about fishing-wise, the different personality between the fish that we're looking for today.

Do I want to stay on the bottom, do I want to stay on the top?

Do they like it cold?

What do they like?

-Yeah, that's going to vary a little bit on to which ones you're going after, but right now it seems to be a little bit on the deeper side because of the cold front that just come through, you know, and the winds and stuff.

But that should trigger a reaction to where the fish should be, so I'm not sure if we're in the right spot right now for them.

Apparently so far, not.

-Well, I don't know; like I said, Rusty, i we catch a fish, then the camera crew is going to want to see it.

We got to stop what we're doing.

I'm kind of having a good time here.

-Yeah, just trying, right?

And that's what we did.

We kept at it, floating up and down the river, trying different spots, looking for that hole that would offer us a fish.

But it just wasn't happening, so Rusty suggested switching things up and changing out the lure.

-We'll change out this guy, and we're going to try a river-to-sea lure, another glide bait.

-So take me through the basics.

What fish are we going after today?

-We're trying to catch with this particular deal and because of our location and because of trout stocking, we have a lot of trout in the river.

The striper will go after the trout.

Shad is one of their more favorite foods that they have, but we don't got a lot of them.

So we're going to try and catch some striped bass, the stripers.

And then after a bit, we're going to go and see if we can catch some trout too.

-So you don't use much live bait, or at least not today.

-We don't have any place that you can get live bait too much here.

The biggest thing for most people is anchovies.

Frozen anchovies is what people mostly use.

-Now, tell me about the attitude of the fish when it comes to the depth of the water and the temperature.

How do you play that?

-As best you can.

(laughter) As best you can.

As Kenny was pointing out earlier, this time of year they tend to go down a little bit after a cold front.

So top water, which is what I was using earlier, is not as effective.

You're trying to aggravate the crap out of the fish to bring them up.

This time of year though, we do get a lot of bigger fish come through here, mostly downriver a little bit where it's deeper so it's harder to get them up in the air.

-So bigger meaning how big are the fish around here?

What's the average catch?

-About 10 to 12 inches.

We're getting a lot of little schoolies they're called, whatever you want to refer to them as.

People are catching a lot of those, and they'll throw them back.

They say we're going to let it grow bigger.

No no no, you keep it so the other fish will grow bigger.

-How about that.

-So everybody's got different theories on what size of fish to catch.

A five- to eight-pound fish is a real typical size.

When you start getting into the 10, 12-pound range, they're a little bit farther and few between.

-Tell me about the limits of catching fish out here.

-The trout are five trout is the limit on trout.

-You can catch five trout.

-Five trout.

Striped bass is still 10 below Davis Dam.

It's 10 stripers, no size limit.

Above Davis Dam, it's 20 inches and there's no limit, and over 20 inches is 20 fish.

-Okay.

So tell me more about what we're going to be using and what your theory is about today.

-Today, this one here is a glide bait.

What I was throwing before, this is a top water.

You're trying to make this guy bounce up there and aggravate that-- you can hear it.

It's got a little rattle in there.

With the one that you're having and this one here is Kenny's, this is more of a jerkbait and again, it's got a little rattle to him.

-You get their attention.

-Try to get them, aggravate them, get them to come up and visit it.

-And is it best to go along the bank?

-Yes.

When you're fishing from a boat, you're casting to shore and bringing it back to you.

When you're fishing from shore, you're throwing it out.

If you're bait fishing, a lot of the fish are cruising the shallows looking for food.

They're not really-- you got a better chance at catching them in close.

-So what if these don't work today?

(crying sounds) No, if they don't work, I'm still happy.

-Yeah yeah yeah.

No, you just never know what's going to happen or not, right, or just maybe they're downriver in another hole.

We didn't stop fishing.

We floated around, made our way up and down the river.

It was a great day.

Everyone should take a day, get yourself a pole and a license and spend some time on the river.

And if you're lucky, you'll meet Rusty and take home more than a fish.

You'll take home a story and a smile.

♪♪♪ Oh, sure.

Everybody wants to hook the big one.

I mean, that's the goal, right?

I'm not disappointed.

Coming out here on a beautiful day, getting an exhale, meeting some new friends, that's the true gift of the river.

♪♪♪ Support for Outdoor Nevada comes from Jaguar Land Rover Las Vegas.

♪♪♪ Inspiring the spirit of adventure with confidence in any terrain or condition.

We're proud to help introduce a new generation of adventurers to the diverse experiences that our state has to offer.

Information at jlrlv.com.