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114 Days as a First-Time Fishing Guide on Haida Gwaii · The Wild Ways Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: They basically blow a spot up.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a good fishing hole, and a sea lion will like show up there one day and stay for two months.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can't really fish that spot because every time you hook onto a fish, he comes and nukes you.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: We call it nuking, where they just grab the fish and then they'll peel your line out.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, welcome to season two of the Wild Ways podcast.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've been gone for off-air for eight months now.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: What have I been up to?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: People ask me, and what am I doing now?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll get into that.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're back to weekly podcasts, and the YouTube channel is just about to fire up.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is kind of a welcome back to the channel podcast and kind of give you an idea of what I was up to and and how it went.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this spring I had an opportunity, and I believe I was probably led to to go there to go over to Haidaguay and be a fishing guide for the summer.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had never been a fishing guide before.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I've fished on the ocean myself and with my buddies and stuff for my whole life, but I've never actually been paid to take people out fishing and to give them an you know an experience out on the water.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it was quite an interesting 114 days that I was gone up there.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'll just give you a little bit of an idea of what it looked like through my eyes as a first-time fishing guide.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we were in arguably one of the better fishing lodges, uh, fairly high-end fishing lodge, you know, in Canada.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it's world renowned, put it that way.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it was an interesting thing.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I part of the reason I I think I was led there and and I ended up there is I wanted to observe, you know, those, you know, the guests that go there and see how the the fishing guides are there, and and you know they're gonna be true pros.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or I guess you don't know, but you think you think they are.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, in May off I went.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I got my certs done.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do a little bit of training to to legally be able to go and do that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Got those done, and then on in May I took off, and basically, you know, you you go to Vancouver, and then I jumped on a plane, and then from there I jumped on a boat, and I ended up in Haidawai and and didn't know anybody, didn't know what I was getting myself into.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was going to a very remote spot, get there.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, they toss you the keys and to a boat, and you get yourself set up to go fishing.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I was very fortunate.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have guests for the first 10 days, which was a huge blessing.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, for a first-time guide, it's a huge blessing because you can learn the area a bit.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: You you you know, your job is to go fishing, so they don't hold you back.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: They say go learn the area.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first 10 days I learned, got the boat ready, went around, learned the area as best I could, figured out the names of things, went fishing with other guides, especially the ones that have been there a while.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Learning, taking it all in, figuring out how things are, and so the first 10 days were good, they were very busy, very uh mentally demanding because you're learning, you're learning a whole new area and and their systems and how they fish it and stuff like that.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: But anyways, once I got going, I one of the biggest reminders for me about outdoor lifestyle and what and I and I love it, but it is physically demanding.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um it is super physically demanding.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: You we're penciled in basically 14 hours a day.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: By the time you get up and you get your boat ready, and you fish and you do the whole lunch thing, and then you go fishing again, and then you come home and you get your boat ready again.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh super long day, and it it truly is.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of the guides there said it it it's a it's a marathon, not a race.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: You if you don't manage your energy, you'll never be able to make it for that length of time.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's so true, is you you have to manage your rest.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't manage that, you're gonna you're gonna blow yourself up and wear yourself right out.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So even little things like if you if you save yourself, you know, you think about it, oh, I I only save five minutes today, but over the course of a hundred days, it adds up to a lot.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you learn to become fairly efficient.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the things I brought home, is like you you're in it for a marathon, figure out how to get efficient at it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: If it means a little bit of extra work at the start to to make you know your daily routine easier, then go ahead and do it.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: But it's super physically demanding.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: One of the ways I got through that too is there there's times in in the season where you know it's often real windy out there or raining hard.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh maybe you're you're super sore, you're tired because it's mid season, you've been doing it, and you're you're kind of walking down the hill to work every day.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that helped me a lot, anyways, is is is when I was sore, tired, exhausted, the weather wasn't good.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just reminded myself, like, I chose this lifestyle.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I chose to go fishing every day.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and when I told myself, like, the worst thing I'm doing is I'm going fishing.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sure made my mindset a lot better to get after it again for that day.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was a little bit of that.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta you gotta push through it mentally, uh, the marathon to make it the full season.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing that that I got asked often is like, you know, guides, what do you guys keep track of?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do you keep track of how many fish you catch?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's it's nothing like that.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think for guests that come in there and they're we're catching fish and we're doing well, and and they're always having dinner with other guests and comparing how much they caught.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: For us guides, it's not about killing fish or how much how many fish you catch.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can sit there and catch endless pinks and stuff.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: For us, it was more, you know, we're a primarily a salmon fishing lodge.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: For us, it was king salmon.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like we were chasing big kings, and and if somebody got a big king, that's what we celebrated as guides.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: We often wanted to hear the story, what depth he was at, where he was at, how it was fishing, how it bit, how the fight was.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we never ever talked about how many pinks we caught or chum or coho or anything like that.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was all about chasing big kings, and and that was interesting, an interesting perspective, but it's the truth.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's nothing like catching a big king salmon up there.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a really cool part of the job is is every day and lots of times twice a day, because we'd go back, take the guests back for lunch, and every day you kick off the dock, you get this new adventure.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't know what's gonna happen.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we we fought a lot of sea lions there, would be stealing our fish quite often.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, sharks, there was apparently it was a big year for sharks.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: They would often come and either take your fish or or take your whole bait, rigging, hooks, everything.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Orcas were quite common around there, humpbacks pretty much every day, and eagles and birds, and you're right out in nature, and and you get this wicked adventure every day, and you don't know what it's about.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: You you're you're just going out there to try to catch fish and have a good day, and maybe do some sightseeing and stuff, and and it seems like every day nature delivers something to you, which is is an awesome lifestyle.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lifestyle of adventure, it's the one I've been chasing so and moving into, and so you do live this awesome life of adventure.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Being a high-end lodge, you get you know guests from all over the world, and I paid particular attention to some of them, they were very wealthy, and I did learn that most humans are pretty much the same.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: You get to know these guys reasonably well when you spend 30 or 40 hours with them on a boat, and there's no cell service, and you're kind of involved with their lives, they're often curious about the guide life and how we do it, and how we manage to do it, and and they're interested in our ways of doing things quite often.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they sometimes they tell you, you know, lots of things about their personal lives that are quite interesting.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And these are big men and women, both CEOs of companies, owners of these big companies.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you get to know them, but I I did learn across the spectrum, most people are pretty much the same, no matter how much money they got.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're either a good person.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we we never really talked much about politics, and there was people on board that were pretty high in that world, but that wasn't a thing that came up.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost like it all all that stuff melts away when you're out there.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I would often tell my guests, you know, one of the biggest things for me being gone all summer was screen time on a cell phone.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: It went from the usual, you know, people do their screen time, it's like five, six hours a day to literally 15 minutes checking in with my family, and that was it.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was pretty much too tired to do any after work.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was hanging out with the other guides usually for like 15-20 minutes just to see how their day went and hear hear any interesting stuff that happened to them out throughout the day, and that was about it.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it was super healthy.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I was out there for the summer, I didn't have any idea what's going on in Iran.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know who's bombing what or anything because my whole life was just focused on that little island and fishing.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I spent more time thinking about how I was getting my bait ready for the morning fish than I did about getting mad about some political thing happening.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have known, and and BC burnt up in terms of forest fires pretty good out there.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Without the internet, you would have no idea that the province was on fire this year.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Out there, you have no smoke or anything.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Fishing was strong this year for Chinook.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: We had a strong Chinook year.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Coho was a little spotty out there.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of chums, lots of pinks.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Halibut were always steady.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ling with Ling was fishing, was good, and you know, I would go Ling and Halibut fishing basically twice a week, and that's always fun, a bit of a change from the salmon.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the biggest Chinook that was caught up there this year was 53 pounds.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't caught by me, it was caught by another guy, another one in the 40s and some high 30s.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: But lots of your Thai type ones fish are in that 31, 32, 33 pound range.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger Chinook and the bigger kings or kings seem to be vanishing.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I've noticed that in my lifetime.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: 20 years ago, there was a lot more 40-pound kings out there, and now it's they're just hard to come by.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And something's definitely going on with that.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: But in terms of numbers, the fish were good.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Ran into way up there, way up.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's the most northwestern tip in BC, so we're we're pretty wild up there.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's it's the most northwestern tip in Canada, so not the most north, but the most northwest tip in Canada is pretty remote.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: We ran into a few hatchery fish, believe it or not, up there.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, a couple guys caught some tagged ones that they were able to send send the data back.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time I left, we hadn't heard back on them on where that fish was from.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of interesting.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Couple quick stories from out of there.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: My my favorite, the ones that never get older are the killer whales or the orcas.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: They, when they showed up, kind of it was just it was and the humpbacks too, but the killer whales, when they showed up, sort of everybody paid attention.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I had some right up beside the boat and thought it was gonna take a salmon from us that we had hooked up, but managed to net it in time.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: That was quite remarkable and an amazing experience.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when they swim under your boat and they come up beside you, it's it's incredible.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, the humpbacks are always magical and they're huge when when they come in close to you.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a big population of sea lions up there, and they, in terms of guides, if there was an animal that the guide disliked the most, if you had to dislike them just because of what they do to us, they basically blow a spot up.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a good fishing hole, and a sea lion will like show up there one day and stay for two months, and so you can't really fish that spot because every time you hook onto a fish, he comes and nukes you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: We call it nuking, where they just grab the fish and then they'll peel your line out, and you got to try to save your line, anyways.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to fish those spots is like you go in there and you hope he doesn't show up, or there's enough other boats that they're preoccupied with another boat, so you can catch a few salmon, but they're the ones that really affected us.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: We had sharks, sharks are pretty cool, like they're super strong and fast.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: These are salmon sharks, they look like mini jaws, they can be like six feet long.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them are in that four or five foot range, but they'll they'll come and take your salmon.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it's kind of like cool.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you hook onto them for a bit and play them.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Usually they end up breaking your line, but that they're pretty cool.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Tons and tons of eagles, and there's puffins up there, and all kinds of like sort of sea duck type looking birds.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's that place just comes alive in June, and then when I left in September, it was starting to get dark, and in the in the early morning, and then the place was just sort of starting to quiet down.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I was fortunate I got to see basically the place come alive and the place start to get ready for winter.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was quite remarkable.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the other guys I worked with are all great guys, uh, some very, very true professional fishermen up there that were more than happy to share their knowledge with me and help me out and get me going.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh they're all in the same bat a lot of times.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: We'd be working a big group together, so we would work together and go do halibut together and ling together and then go back after the salmon.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the the guides themselves, almost all of them were true pros, and I learned a tremendous amount that you'd never let that I had no clue about fishing from these guys, and and they're lifetime fishermen.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're they're great at it, they're they know all the tricks, and they work really hard for their guests.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know that.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Would I go back again?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I get I've been asked that a bunch of times since I've been home.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's a question they told me do not answer till January.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was ready to come home in September.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I missed my family and I was worn out.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I I often explained it is if you go to the gym and you you work your your biceps and then you go home and the next day you work your legs, you give your biceps a couple days to recover.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And fishing for the summer in that marathon is like a full body workout every day with zero recovery days.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time I come home, I was I was ready.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: I needed a couple recovery days.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was told don't don't answer if you're coming back until about January.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the once you get over that, you know, it's mentally draining and physically draining, and and you're sitting at home in the middle of winter and it's snowing out and dark all the time.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think at that point you're like, Yeah, I could fish again.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's yet to be determined for me.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I met some wonderful guests that I still in contact with, you know, up until today, and probably will maintain some relationships for a long time that came out of that.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, will I go back to be determined?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I I wasn't burnt out or tired.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta love fishing to do it, and I love fishing.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll we'll see what next year brings.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: But overall, great experience.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if if you're thinking about it and you're able to go out and and do something like that for even if it's one season, I'd highly recommend it because it it re-establishes a bit of discipline because when you get up, you have to go fishing no matter what.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it you can't call in sick, you work every single day.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, part of that reward for discipline is I'm hoping to bring that back home with me, and I think I have to a certain extent so far, and and use it for my next gig, which is what am I up to now?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: What am I gonna be doing?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is well, I'm gearing up as as we speak right now to get the wild ways going, Lyman's Wildways, YouTube, all that back up and running, and then I'm gonna trap for about nine weeks this winter and plan on trapping like a like a full-time job, except I'll be documenting it, so that'll slow me down a bit.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what I want to do is document that full-time trapping, go out there, watch my expenses, do it with intent to see how much money I can make at the end of the season.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And because I'm real rusty at trapping, I think it's gonna be a huge learning curve, sort of like the fishing was for me this year.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I look forward to it.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm gonna trap one side of the trap line until about winter solstice, then I may do a a move right on winter solstice on December 21st to the other half and and finish the season on the other half of the trap line, just kind of work both sides.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to the adventure that that brings.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Next week, I'll talk more about the trap line.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I I did a bad job in terms of because I was gone of like cutting trail and skip scouting, so that's just about to start.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Trapping season for me will get going just in in November, even though beaver and and wolf and stuff is open now, but I'm gonna get going really into it in November.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, I'm prepping for it, so I'm getting some stuff ready, getting some supplies, preparing for that, getting my feet back on the ground here, which was a little bit of family time for sure, a few days of recovery.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I went and did some hunting, personal hunting with with uh friend of mine and and the kids, and had a good time doing that.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had a friend come up and visit, one of the guides came through.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been just sort of getting my feet back on the ground, and I'm very happy to get back into podcasting and and making the YouTube channel and to really get out into the bush trapping and to do it, try to do it properly this year.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, that's the update.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've got some work to do on the one of the cabins there and some trail to cut before I can really get going.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: I might and I'll bring you guys along for all of that so you can check out what I'm up to.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the update.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So my summer was spent up on Haidegui or Queen Charlotte Islands, whatever you want to call it.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a great deal about fishing for a living.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a lot about people.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I got to meet some fabulous people.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how the lodge runs, a little bit about it, anyways, how they operate such a big operation from such a remote spot.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I met some great people, the other guys.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I made some lifelong friends, and next week we're going to be talking way more trapping and moving forward into the next phase of the outdoor life.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, until next time, have a great day, guys.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.