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Fishing Guide Q&A: A Day in the Life on Haida Gwaii · The Wild Ways Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a sprint, it's just a giant long marathon where fourth but out there fishing, it's like a full body workout every day with zero recovery time.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the hard good day.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wild Ways Podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm going to answer a few questions about what it was like to be a first-time fishing guide in Haidagua.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it may help some of you that are considering doing it or just want to know what a typical day looked like for a fishing guide up in a remote salmon fishing lodge in British Columbia.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I decide to go guide this summer?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I had been thinking about this outdoor lifestyle for a long time.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And this opportunity came up, and I wasn't really looking, but I was thinking about it, and I decided to go give it a try because we often will live in our minds in this like fantasy world of what the outdoor life is really like.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and when we're working normal jobs, we use our weekends or sometimes our holidays to go do outdoor stuff, but we never really jumped full-time into it.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I this would be for me, it was like the first step to becoming a full-time outdoorsman, and that's the pursuit I was after.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It took a lot for myself and my family to make it happen.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I had to take off to Vancouver and then Nanaimo to do some courses so I had the proper certifications to take people fishing.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we did that.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, we had to mentally prepare and ourselves that you know I was going to be away for potentially the whole summer.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a family decision that we didn't come lightly.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: We spent a lot of time thinking that one through, and and then of course had to get some stuff ready here at home.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when I took off, uh I gave us the best chance of everything going smooth while I was away.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so for all of us, it was a big commitment and a big risk, and and you're leaving for months at a time.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things, and I I said this often, is that people go off to war and they're gone for six months, and they're they're literally at war, and and I was gone for you know almost four months, like fishing, where I could pick up the phone after work, or anytime I was back at at the lodge to to get a hold, and I could see you could see your family on FaceTime, and so when you put it in that perspective, it wasn't that big of a challenge, it's just the matter of getting out and doing it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: When I was leaving Prince George, what was going through my head on the way to the airport is this weird feeling of like I'm doing it.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was really unsure because I was gonna be away from home and from my family for the longest time in my life, so I I had this weird feeling of uncertainty about if I was doing the right thing or not.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so I I ended up in on the plane, I went a day early, so I left on May the 22nd.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: I went a day early just so I wouldn't miss my flight over to Haidagui the next day.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So went in there, went to the River Rock, kind of went over my stuff.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I had a suitcase, I was basically told don't bring any fishing gear will supply you with all that.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I just had like this suitcase that I was going to have all my stuff in for the next however long I was gone for.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So then I got up, went to the airport out of the south terminal, flew to Haidaguai, and then basically jumped on a boat.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Guests will fly from Massed on a helicopter into the lodge.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: We take boats as as we were getting ready for the season.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I jumped on a boat.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was really rough out that day, too.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was like seven, eight foot swells with chop on top, and we set off.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's about like 40 miles to to the island.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that took us, you know, probably four hours, three, four hours to get up there.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was like I said, it was rough.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And seen the island, and then you basically again no idea what to expect.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: You get to the lodge, and it's kind of like your move-in day, so you don't you're not expected to do anything once you get there other than get your room set up.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so they showed me around.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: They were waiting for us, so most of the guides came in on that day, and we basically went to the rooms, got ourselves organized, and then uh the next day got up, had a had a meeting with the general manager with all the guides, and the usual the like the long-term guides there get you know their usual boats, and and there was at that time there was four of us new guides there, and at that meeting is where we got our boats assigned to us.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So after that, we went down to the dock and basically they toss you the keys to your boat, and away you go, you get it set up and get ready to go fishing.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: The first 10 days with no guests was such a blessing for me, and like I said, they toss you the keys to your boat, and basically it's yours for the summer.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Get it ready to go fishing and make sure all your stuff's good.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the first 10 days was such a blessing because one, it enabled me to get used to the new boat, but which was fine, but the more important thing was to learn the waters, learn the areas of of where guys are likely to catch fish.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of us guides, a lot of the long-term guides helped the new guys, and we would go fishing together.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: They would show us around, teach us some techniques, some tricks.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was just a blessing for me to be able to go fishing without guests every day for the first 10 days.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, what a normal day looked like was I my normal day out there from wake up to bed looked like this.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I would get up at 5.40 in the morning and be out the door of my room at 6 a.m.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And from 6 to 6.15 or so I would get coffee.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't a big breakfast guy at all, so I I would grab some fruit or something and put it in my room for for later, but grabbed coffee and at 6.15 we headed down to the dock to be there for 6.30 at the latest, but normally 20 after 6, 25 after 6, I would show up at the dock.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: At that point, you're getting ice in your boat, you're getting your your bait rigged up for your rods, your your day, you're planning your day out, making sure your engines, everything's good to go, uh for the guests to show up at 7 a.m.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at 7 a.m.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: you kick off the dock.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: A typical day would be you'd go you'd kick off at 7, you'd go fishing.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a beautiful lodge up there.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So most often the guests would want to come home for for a break for lunch.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd come home for noon and then you'd kick off again at 2 back fishing, and then you're back at the dock for 7 o'clock.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: From about so your guests leave you at 7 p.m.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: at night, and then you got about 45 minutes or so of cleaning your boat.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you need to get fuel, you get fuel at that time.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Getting your boat set up again for the morning, and so it's about 40 45 minutes.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So then you'd go up about 7 45, and you'd go to the where we ate dinner there, and that's a 15 or 20 minute thing.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's quite often I would get back to to the house so call.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: We us guys basically we live in a separate building, it's like it's essentially our own like hotel, and so I'd get back there around 8 15 or so, and and at that point, you know, you you have a beer or two on the patio with the other guides and talk about your day and talk about your guests and and make plans for tomorrow, especially if you're working in a group or something, you you talk to the guides that are working that group as well, and and kind of make a plan for the next day, whether you're gonna do the the bottom fishing thing or go back for salmon or sightseeing or whatever that looks like.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I would usually be tucked in my room by about 9:30 and lights out for me at about 10:30, and just to uh rinse and repeat that for you know every day for the next hundred days is kind of how that looked.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So then I I got my first guest, he was a nice guy, he was from Toronto, pretty successful businessman, and another fella from Kelowna, and and they were up for an event up there, and and we had a lot of fun.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was very early June, and we were chasing springs for the most part, and we did the halibut and the ling, and at that time of year there's just a ton of ling around.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh everywhere you go, you basically can catch ling, and and halibut's pretty easy, but we had a good first trip.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I had good first guests, so it was a good start for me, and then it just rolled from there.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the wild the wildlife is is spectacular out there, and and being out there from May till September, you get to see that part of the world come alive in in the spring and the summer, and then you get to see it sort of wind down and go to sleep in in the fall when I left.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it it the wildlife is incredible.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like humpbacks were essentially a daily thing, sea lions were a daily thing.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're a bit of an enemy of the fishing guides.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: If they move into your spot, they'll grab if you have a fish on often, they'll just grab your fish and pull your line out and everything.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we out of all the wildlife that we've seen there, they're they're probably the ones we as guides, fishing guides dislike the most.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But there's hundreds there, and we would go tour our guests around so they could look at them.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's really national geographic.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's orcas that roll through every few days, and and that's that never gets old.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: The humpbacks are not I in my opinion, the whale watching and stuff that never gets old.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just amazing, it's incredible.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: The eagles that that are there are are spectacular, they're all over the place, and there's puffins there.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's that's kind of like this rare bird that that has a home there, and all kinds of other birds, and and and the the fishing and and and the the sharks, the bait that surfaces around you, literally thousands and thousands, thousands of fish will like pop up beside your boat.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that wildlife is something that uh that really humbles you and makes you realize where we fit in it all.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and the observation of nature out there did teach me that, and it it taught me that everything matters and it's all connected in one one form or another.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's completely connected.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: It has if you see, you know, 50 seagulls way offshore, there's a purpose for that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're not out there just like playing, playing around.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's they're out there for a reason.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the hardest part would be the marathon of it all.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a sprint, it's just a giant long marathon where I often said it's it's I ref refer to it as if you went to the gym and you worked on your biceps, say the next day you would you would do legs because you'd give your biceps a break and so on and so forth.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: But out there fishing, it's like a full body workout every day with zero recovery time.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the hardest part was just the grind of of midsummer.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can see some of the people start to crack a little bit, it's because they're just utterly exhausted.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you really gotta manage your rest.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: But the the hardest part, other than being away from home, was the marathon of it, the the physically, the demands it of how physically demanding it is and mentally challenging.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's something I learned early on, and from the experienced guides up there is don't count the days down, just do one day at a time.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Just focus on putting one foot in front of the other one, do one day at a time.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: The second you start counting days down, they really tend to drag the season out longer.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I I didn't I didn't count down days.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just put my head down, went to work, worked as hard as I could, and tried to take care of my rest as best I could.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: The last few weeks, most everybody that made it that whole season was was ready.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Last couple weeks were, I mean, at that time of year the days are getting shorter too.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're if you're sometimes you'd go fishing the couple times a week, you might go fishing at 6 30 in the morning and you're literally walking to your boat, it's it's pitch blackout, and when you're leaving, it's it's still kind of dark, so you're you're and you're tired from from the long season.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the fishing this year was very strong into September, but that was a massive bonus.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is that at least when we went out, it wasn't like we were grinding hard to find fish.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: There was fish around.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: What would I tell someone thinking about trying this?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I would say do it.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh life is short, it was a phenomenal experience.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can't answer if I'll do it again.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: If they they told me don't answer until about January in the middle of winter, you're you're sitting around in the snow and you probably think to yourself, yeah, I could fish again.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: But anybody that wants to or that's thinking about it and has the ability to do it, I would say go give it a shot.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It it's a wonderful lifestyle.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, at the end of the day, you are fishing every day.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: You could be tired, could be exhausted, but you're going fishing.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the really is the best part of that is the fact that you fish for a living.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So anybody thinking about it, if you have the ability, go do it, go do it for one season, grind it out, even like try to make the whole season, and at the end of it, I I guarantee you'll most well, I guarantee you'll look back and and have no regrets on it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll have met some great people out there.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I met some phenomenal guests and and had some shared some experiences with lifetime experiences with people out there that I'm sure is on their screensaver at work, some of the stuff that happened to us.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So and now it's trap line season, so we're gonna move from the fishing outdoor world to the trapping outdoor world, and that's what I'm gonna be getting ready for now, and full steam ahead on that.