924 | Remote Fly Fishing Adventures: Golden Dorado, Seychelles GTs, and Kamchatka Trout with Christiaan Pretorius

00;00;02;04 – 00;00;25;10 Dave Some of the best water you’ll ever fish is the water most people never reach. Today, we’re joined by Christian Pretorius Global Guide, Traveler, and someone who spent most of his life chasing fly fishing across the world. From picking up a rod at six years old in South Africa to guiding nearly year round in places like the Seychelles, Kamchatka and Bolivia, he’s seen what happens when you push this lifestyle as far as it can go. 00;00;25;22 – 00;00;44;06 Dave This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast, where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Christian Pretorius is here and he’s going to walk us through his life around fly fishing, what he’s got going now and what he’s got planned in the future. 00;00;44;07 – 00;01;06;03 Dave We’re going to find out about this Golden Dorado fishing trip in Bolivia and how it’s one of the most intense and visual fisheries out there. We’re going to find out about the evolution of remote fishing, heli access versus earning it on foot. We’re going to get into the changes in fly fishing in some of these remote destinations and what the jungle teaches you that you can’t learn anywhere else. 00;01;06;06 – 00;01;23;06 Dave This is going to be a fun one. If you ever thought about traveling for a living or just for fun or getting out more on trips around the world, you’re going to enjoy this one. Let’s get into it. Here is you can find Christian at CB, fly fishing, dot.com. Here he is, Christian Pretorius. How you doing? 00;01;23;06 – 00;01;29;27 Christian Christian Del Mar and happy to be here. We’ve been talking about doing this one for a while, so I’m glad it finally it’s working out. 00;01;30;03 – 00;01;48;05 Dave Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah, you’re definitely a busy guy. We’re going to talk about that today where you’re traveling around the world, I think. I think it’d be cool to get a high level of some of the places you’re going to talk about some of your, you know, maybe trips you’re all excited about and all that. But, you know, before we get into that, where did this this travel thing you got going? 00;01;48;08 – 00;01;52;22 Dave Has this been since early age or when did you start, you know, getting into all this stuff? 00;01;53;07 – 00;02;16;05 Christian It’s it’s a question I still turn out, to be honest, where this travel bug came from. But it said at a young age to be diagnosed like my dad, the fly fishing started at the age of six. I mean, that’s when my dad put a fighter in mind and he he was a busy, passionate life fisherman. And you kind of showed me the ropes and I’m love fly casting and and the idea of it and being outside. 00;02;16;05 – 00;02;27;06 Christian And honestly, man, it’s been my 25 years now of dedication and just kind of giving my soul to this industry, which I have absolutely loved. And yeah, it’s been a good ride. 00;02;27;13 – 00;02;29;00 Dave Yeah. And where did you grow up? 00;02;29;10 – 00;02;59;20 Christian And I grew up in I was actually born in Pretoria in South Africa. Then I moved to Cape Town kind of in my mid-teens. And then right after university I went to kind of work abroad. So that’s when I got on the plane and then kind of spread my wings and started traveling quite a lot. And I would say I did about nine years kind of from Seychelles to Kamchatka, Dubai Almaz, and got to see quite a bit of the world in the nine years. 00;02;59;20 – 00;03;18;14 Christian And then 2019 kind of decided we wanted to move back to Africa. And that’s that’s when we decided to call Namibia home. And that’s right now. And so there’s this view that down to nine and maybe it’s kind of the neighboring country to South Africa on the on the west coast of Africa, just north of South Africa. 00;03;18;27 – 00;03;22;08 Dave Gotcha. And are there some opportunities around there for flight vision? 00;03;22;19 – 00;03;43;12 Christian Yeah, Yeah. It’s it’s a funny thing, but there’s actually really nothing to fly fish for here. The borders said the southern border. You can fish for kind of your little fish and then in the north you fish for tigerfish. But for me, because the fly right here, the shoulders drive, will be around like 8 hours to get any fishable water. 00;03;43;12 – 00;04;02;11 Christian So when I’m home, it really is downtime and kind of tapping into a lot of my other passions that I have. I’m pretty passionate about land and do a lot of like diving and surfing and all kinds of things. So I enjoy the life outside of fly fishing and then back home for sure. 00;04;02;18 – 00;04;07;26 Dave Wow. And when are you when are you home and when are you traveling with How much time do you get at home? 00;04;08;29 – 00;04;36;07 Christian So that’s the constant struggle, right, is to find the balance. And that’s the ongoing struggle is to find that kind of perfect balance. So now, more than ever, I think I’m spending quite a bit of time home. In the past, I would say 6 to 8 years, I was home probably at most for three months a year. Last year, the longest stretch I was home was for six weeks at once, which was great. 00;04;36;17 – 00;04;55;14 Christian So I’m trying to break it up a little bit now. So starting this year I did a long stretch, which was eight weeks away, non home for like six weeks and I’ll be away for like two weeks. And so I’m trying to balance it out, but trying to do a big trip, I would say every other month to every two months I’ll do a big trip. 00;04;55;24 – 00;05;09;22 Dave Okay. And you’ve done what do you think when you’re I mean, you’ve kind of covered a little bit of everything and these, you know, mega trips around the world. What are some of your, you know, kind of maybe your favorites or what are some that you got coming? You give a heads up what you’re looking forward to? 00;05;09;26 – 00;05;38;29 Christian Yeah. Yeah. The the classic question of what’s your favorites? And I it’s a really difficult question because I do love it all. You know it’s I love everything from a two way can to 12 wide. So I always tell people my favorite species, the next one I get to gas too. But in all reality, I think if I had to choose a top five, it would be something in the order of in Seychelles, you would be up there, Bolivia would be up there, Kamchatka would be up. 00;05;38;29 – 00;05;58;26 Christian That New Zealand is is right up there. I think Mexico has a lot to offer. It’s hard to kind of put your finger on one spot in Mexico, but there’s a lot of fish I love to fish for in Mexico. Rooster fish, striped moorland permit. So there’s a lot of exciting things in Mexico. Yeah. 00;05;59;06 – 00;06;03;26 Dave How many do you do? The species count. We always go back to the Jeff career. You know, he’s. 00;06;04;04 – 00;06;04;17 Christian More man. 00;06;04;17 – 00;06;06;10 Dave 400 species or whatever reason. 00;06;06;12 – 00;06;24;27 Christian I’m very jealous of Jeff and and take my hat off to Jeff for keeping track. I have not done that now I’ll our you in the Seychelles just a couple of seasons in the Seychelles itself you lose track of species and you catch a lot of fish that you have no idea what they are. You see things that you’ve never seen before. 00;06;25;05 – 00;06;38;09 Christian So I wish I did keep track, but unfortunately I have not. The only thing I keep track of is the permit count and the countries. So that’s like that do things that I really keep track of. 00;06;38;18 – 00;06;41;13 Dave What do you have? What’s your country list look like? 00;06;42;15 – 00;06;57;20 Christian The so fly fish country is I’m on 39 countries now, so that’s just where I went fly fishing and adding a couple more than that, fly fishing. And then yeah, I mean my permit count is or I think 170 now. 00;06;57;29 – 00;06;59;05 Dave 178. 00;06;59;07 – 00;07;00;26 Christian Hundred and 17 Oh. 00;07;00;26 – 00;07;08;23 Dave Yeah. 17 Yeah. Four is at the one out of everything you’ve done at all is that, is, that’s the kind of the hardest species. Is it the most. But what’s the most challenging one. 00;07;09;09 – 00;07;29;29 Christian I would say somehow the more you’re Scottish you tend to try and make every species more difficult because you start hunting specific fish. You can take New Zealand for instance, and you can go and you can have a great time. But if you slanting, think for that one stand out. I call it kind of fishing for moments nowadays. 00;07;29;29 – 00;07;50;29 Christian And you want that one fish that’s that you can you you know in that river that’s the fish that you want to catch. So that’s a hard fish to catch. But in general, I think it demands a consistent level of a certain skill You need to be able to present the fly in the right way, right presentation. Don’t get me wrong. 00;07;50;29 – 00;07;59;03 Christian I mean, they they can get pretty stupid sometimes, too, which is great days, but it’s few and far in between and difficulties with movement then with other species. 00;07;59;12 – 00;08;08;29 Dave Right, right, right. And and so and then you mentioned New Zealand is Australia. Does that, is that a whole separate thing or do you kind of combine those two areas as I know you’ve done some stuff there too. 00;08;09;12 – 00;08;34;24 Christian You can I mean look, it’s a long it’s a long way to travel and so that’s something I try and achieve with most of the trip that I do is to add more than one trip in a kind of a single leg travel. And so we’re not unfortunately with New Zealand, it’s it kind of falls. I like to go in February and the only thing that really aligns with New Zealand season is the west coast of Australia called Exmouth. 00;08;35;12 – 00;08;52;29 Christian There’s a there’s a lot of good fishing out there, but I haven’t been personally. So it’s it’s very exciting to have that one on the list of things to do. I’ve done Tasmania, which is also a really good add on to New Zealand and that was, that was a very unique little experience and the special part of the world actually. 00;08;53;13 – 00;09;09;15 Dave Right. So yeah, I mean there’s so much here to kind of try to filter through. I am kind of thinking, you know, we’re off air talking, they’re gone a little bit dark about that. Is that something that you’ve you’ve chased for a while or and what do you got coming up on that species? 00;09;09;25 – 00;09;31;25 Christian Yeah, I think Golden Grotto is one of those fish that they, they are on the list for a lot of people and it’s it’s it’s hard not to like them. It’s a very visual esthetic fish and big golden bars and big heads and very aggressive and jump and they do everything you want them to do. I was introduced to Golden. 00;09;31;25 – 00;10;13;06 Christian Righto fishing back in nothing was 2017 when I did a trip to the northern part of Argentina to a place called Pura Large and Iberian marshlands. And that is a really cool trip because there was a lot of fish. And so it was a good introduction to just catching many. And they’re not necessarily the size ones, but from there like that, there was a pool kind of towards Bolivia and well, now it’s definitely ranked one of my top destinations because of the fact that you get to fish for these fish in the high teens like, you know, like 15 to 20, £25 fish in a very, very small river and especially the tributaries where it’s 00;10;13;15 – 00;10;38;05 Christian it’s clean water. It’s like it’s a river that, you know, they expect, you know, 15, 20 inch brown trout. And and instead there’s a 15 to £20 volume Morata and it’s clear clearing. So it’s it’s, it’s for most porridge and gear and and it does demand a certain level of skill to get those big fish. I think with time there’s fish of wise and quite a bit. 00;10;38;14 – 00;10;56;10 Christian I mean I know there’s fish and resident fish and so they’ve seen fires before and so every season you go back, you can definitely see the fish are getting smarter and which I’m not always mad about it like I’m, I respect that Yeah we, we train them to be smarter so we just have to step up and be better. 00;10;56;20 – 00;11;06;05 Dave These are resident fish in Bolivia or, or do you know a little bit about that. You get into that on the the species a little bit on, on how you know their life history and where they’re going and travel and all that stuff. 00;11;06;16 – 00;11;36;05 Christian Yeah. So the golden rhino and they migrate up this river system they follow the ceballos depends on the rain kind of and and how much rain they’ve had and and how much water they have that dictates how easily the baitfish can run up these rivers. And so the, the main Sakura River, that’s kind of where everything happens. So an early season, rainy season, that’s when these fish start moving up the river and they’ve for about two years. 00;11;36;05 – 00;11;57;17 Christian I say about four years ago and they had very low water and these the big fish they call saboteur wasn’t able to run up these tributaries and the smaller river systems and in return there was hardly any gold in their order that would move up these rivers. So rainfall is obviously extremely important and water levels for these fish to be able to move up to those headwaters. 00;11;57;26 – 00;12;05;12 Dave Because otherwise they’re down. Are they down in the if they can’t make it in the tributaries and low water, do they stay in like the bigger rivers And then you can’t you can’t really fish for them. 00;12;05;18 – 00;12;31;27 Christian Yes. So way, way further down there’s almost like almost becomes a I wouldn’t say stagnant piece of water, but it’s almost like a shallow lake. And there’s quite a lot of debris and structure and and literally the fish are quite stuck down there and by the sounds of things. But in saying that the headwaters of all these rivers, that’s when you get a bit more gradient and you get a bit more structure, bigger boulders, flowing water, oxygenated water. 00;12;32;05 – 00;12;48;20 Christian And there’s quite a lot of fish that just live out there. And those are the ones we call the resident fish, and those are the ones that do get smart. But, but those are generally the really big ones. And you can see that in the coloration, sometimes a slightly darker because they live in a slightly darker and water. 00;12;49;02 – 00;13;05;10 Christian So it’s it’s a very unique and it’s a it’s a fragile river system and yeah, it’s one like every year go back to you just hopefully good what live and then you’re going to see the jungle healthy. You know at the end of the day when it gets the fish but more and more that anything you want to see these places thrive and do. 00;13;05;10 – 00;13;11;24 Dave Well yeah healthy. Where and where is the closest town or lodge? Where is this located, this place? 00;13;12;09 – 00;13;34;09 Christian And to tell that big guy Bolivia. I mean, you fly into Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz and then from there maybe you spend a night there and then you’ll then the following morning you’ll take the charter flight and you’ll fly about an hour and a half hour, 45. There’s two little runways that they use, like these little grass landing strips. 00;13;34;09 – 00;13;58;01 Christian I think they used to use it for like, okay, an export of. Right. So it’s quite a big story of flying in there. And you’re like, I have no idea where this plane is going. Oh my God. Anyway, but they definitely dropping in altitude and you just look in front and then there’s this like bright green little strip and you, you, you touch down and there’s just kids running from the villages and you’re pretty well received and it’s immediate. 00;13;58;01 – 00;14;16;27 Christian We can feel the it’s a different kind of person, you know, like we moved from, I would say society in some way to some extent, but just happy. You see kids playing around and it’s it’s always so welcoming. Kids doing what kids supposed to do, you know, like to mix the river, playing in the river, fishing. So yeah, it’s it’s a cool thing to do. 00;14;16;27 – 00;14;17;18 Christian See, every time. 00;14;17;29 – 00;14;29;14 Dave That’s cool. So you going to Santa Cruz and then you fly out there into down into the near the lodge or what what does that look like to the you’re going and what is the river system again. What’s the bigger river system. 00;14;29;27 – 00;14;32;11 Christian So the main river is called the secret river system. 00;14;32;18 – 00;14;33;29 Dave Okay. Do you know how to spell that? 00;14;34;13 – 00;14;37;10 Christian It’s s e c u r e. 00;14;37;25 – 00;14;38;07 Dave Okay. 00;14;38;18 – 00;15;05;15 Christian Sacred. Right. And so there’s three main lodges on the system. So you’ve got the Broome a large and which is now the bigger lodge. That’s also where they do the Healy fishing out of which is, is a whole different story in itself. It opened up the possibilities of getting to basically everywhere, which is amazing. It’s a blessing and a good sign that we can touch into that if you want to do it right. 00;15;05;15 – 00;15;13;05 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mean, you mean because you can go anywhere. You mean you’re seeing helicopters flying overhead now and stuff like that. Why, What’s the disadvantage of that? 00;15;13;19 – 00;15;43;13 Christian So so the disadvantages, I do believe sometimes certain places are not meant for everyone to experience. And see. You got to work. You have to earn it, you got to work, you got to sweat, you got to you got to do the step count, you know? And that was something that was extremely special about Bolivia. Is is back in the day before Chile, you had to like some days we would hike for 4 hours and fish for maybe 2 hours and then hike back the whole way. 00;15;43;13 – 00;15;45;25 Dave And that’s takes a certain person. 00;15;46;03 – 00;16;10;12 Christian It takes a certain person. And when you catch that one fish up, they you never forget it. And now to put it in perspective, the helicopters, we could walk as far as we could back in the day. The helicopters wouldn’t even stop there now. Like, it’s it’s they go way, way, way further way. We used to walk for 4 hours to get to now takes in like a two minute helicopter flight so everyone gets to see it. 00;16;10;12 – 00;16;24;00 Christian Everyone, which is great. I mean, you have to you have to give it give it kind of that thought, too. Like people get to see beautiful sports. But at the end of the day, like I said, I don’t think everyone’s supposed to see these places if they don’t work hard for it. 00;16;25;28 – 00;17;05;17 Dave Fly Fish With Me Utah Discover Year round blue ribbon trout fishing on the famed Provo River. Choose a guided walk and Wade or a scenic float and experience big trout, stunning canyons and unforgettable days on the water. 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And, you know, at a certain point, there’s these wild areas that need to stay wild, you know, And that’s what they’re. 00;17;36;21 – 00;17;37;14 Christian Absolutely. 00;17;37;14 – 00;17;39;24 Dave Right. That’s what makes them what they are. So, yeah. 00;17;40;01 – 00;18;02;00 Christian It really is. And there’s a sense of appreciation. I love to work hard. It’s just something I think it’s extremely rewarding. And I’ve put in the time, you know, it’s like with everything we do with New Zealand, with all these things, we work hard to get that sense. You know, at the end of the day, when people just see that big fish meal building a big fish, there’s a lot of backstory to every single one of those fish most of the time. 00;18;02;00 – 00;18;17;29 Christian Look, sometimes you get lucky. There’s a lot of luck involved in fishing, but at the end of the day, when you put in the hard work, it’s like Gary Player always said, like the harder you practice, the luckier you get. And and I said, Man, if you’re willing to work hard and you further, you’ll see some special things. 00;18;17;29 – 00;18;33;15 Dave Exactly. Yeah. And then the flip side of that is you got a lot of people, you know, a lot that listen to this podcast that are a little bit older, you know, some people that might be in their eighties and whatever, and they’re maybe can’t get around as much. Right. And probably that helicopter ride in there is the only way they’re ever going to see that at a certain age. 00;18;33;15 – 00;18;55;15 Christian Absolutely. So and I’ll be the first one to say again, I’ve been able to take people now to Bolivia because of daily fishing. That wasn’t in the past, I would say capable of really fishing it way. Now I’m confident of the hill. You can put us in a place where we can get it done. And so it opened up this opportunity for people that sometimes I mean, some people are disabled. 00;18;55;15 – 00;19;15;01 Christian You know, I’ve got a I’ve got some clients that’s that’s been injured before and they they not capable of doing certain things. And so I have to be able to tell that guy, listen, we can go get the golden Grotto now and and that’s a cool thing. So they’ve opened the they’ve created this opportunity for for people to do it, to get it done. 00;19;15;13 – 00;19;36;09 Christian And it’s it’s wild because you’re in the middle of the jungle that they’ve created this. It’s almost like a hotel feeling. They’ve created something really special in the sense of the infrastructure that they’ve created. It’s grown a lot over the years where at the start it was like full on rooms and now they’ve got, I think, 24 rooms. 00;19;36;09 – 00;19;42;14 Christian They’re and there’s two helicopters. And so that’s another one. Like I’m just jumping back to the lodge. 00;19;43;15 – 00;19;44;14 Dave Is at the Plumer Lodge. 00;19;44;21 – 00;20;01;27 Christian Yeah. So that’s pretty large and so my lodge, I’m going to run through these through pretty quick, but through my lodge. And then at the top of Cooma you’ve got the upper three summer river and you’ve got the Upper Plumer River. So those are the two main tributaries that flow into the into the plume and then the plume up next to the Sakura. 00;20;02;08 – 00;20;26;22 Christian So that’s kind of the primo program. Obviously with 80 copter you can fly anyway, then I go to Negra, that’s the second camp they’ve got. I, I can’t really remember the, the tributaries but I think they’ve got the watching Momo and the Tomorrow or something like that, tributaries that flow into that kind of system. And then they’ve got this acute river system which also has due to tributaries. 00;20;26;22 – 00;20;55;24 Christian So every camp has two tributaries, the sugar and Aqua Negros mainly, or it’s kind of the normal program. They’re not really fishing, but you’ve got access to really good water on foot. And then at Plumer, they also obviously the heli program, but they’re also also early hybrid program, which I am very fond of. And the price point is obviously a little less than just pure Hayley fishing, but you also get they experience the raw true experience. 00;20;55;24 – 00;21;15;20 Christian So what they do is they give you three days of fishing and you’ve got three days of fishing where you do it like we used to do in old days with some some of the native guys, you walking through the jungle, you’re fishing on foot. And so I encourage most people to do that one because it’s you get to see kind of the real thing. 00;21;15;27 – 00;21;22;29 Dave The jungle. Yeah. What is it like when you’re for somebody who hasn’t walked through the jungle? What is that? How is that different than other places you’ve been to? 00;21;23;06 – 00;21;44;21 Christian Oh, man, I still get I just got goose bumps now asking like it is. It is a jungle, as you can find. I mean, you think of of a as a child to do like thinking of what the jungle looks like. That is the jungle and it’s dark in the jungle. It’s thick. It is. You always think like when you walk in a little path, which is kind of been created with time. 00;21;45;01 – 00;22;10;08 Christian But if you step off of that little parcel, that’s that little trek that’s been created. I mean, there’s there’s a lot of things that can hurt you. You look at the trees of all the massive phones, I’m informed as as long as you’re and, you know, it’s it’s it’s serious. And you’ve got these caterpillars and you’ve got I mean, we’ve seen some really cool things every every single morning when you walk out, you’re almost guaranteed to see fresh jaguar tracks. 00;22;10;08 – 00;22;33;21 Christian So there’s a lot of Jaguars, there’s a lot of wild pigs like these turkeys. And you’ve got it’s it’s really fascinating. Then over here you’ve got the macaws flying around and so this sounds all something out of this world when when you wake up in the jungle that’s one of the coolest things is the sounds. And that’s something that sticks with me every single time. 00;22;33;21 – 00;22;36;10 Christian And I always do like a voice recording of the sound. 00;22;36;20 – 00;22;41;01 Dave Right? Right. Yeah. Maybe we will have to look up a voice recorder or a recording. 00;22;41;01 – 00;22;42;12 Christian I can send you one for sure. 00;22;42;12 – 00;22;58;17 Dave Yeah, that’ll be great. Yeah, really great to get that on the show notes so people can listen to that. And yeah, it’s pretty exciting. I feel like I always go back to these, these especially all the trips, really everything. And it feels like sometimes I say this where it feels like the travel and the trip is almost half of it, you know, the fishing’s the other half. 00;22;58;17 – 00;23;05;04 Dave But what’s your take? It Sometimes I get blowback when people say no, it is really about the fishing, but it sounds like you do a lot of the other stuff. 00;23;05;17 – 00;23;26;27 Christian Now more than ever. I can honestly say I love the other stuff equally. I it’s definitely changed. I think people can be very hard on themselves and that put a lot of pressure on themselves to kind of do it justice by you have to catch a fish. And so the start of the trip and it’s like, if I don’t catch a fish, it’s not a good trip. 00;23;26;27 – 00;23;28;12 Christian That’s a really kind of. 00;23;28;19 – 00;23;35;00 Dave That’s that’s a tough place. All right. If I don’t catch a certain size fish or if I don’t catch a 15 pounder or something, I try and do. 00;23;35;00 – 00;24;00;02 Christian Exactly. And you see people like extremely competitive and ego driven where they want to catch the biggest dish of the trip and or they want to be the guy in the spotlight. And I feel like this is not the industry for trying to be like famous or like to be recognized or to be. So I definitely now more than ever, appreciate the places and the people that you get to do this with the cultures. 00;24;00;02 – 00;24;15;13 Christian I’m a I’m very much a foodie, so I like to dig into like a lot of the local cuisine and stuff that I like to go eat sometimes with the locals in some of the places. So I think it’s a special thing and you got to kind of grab it with both hands and try to get the most out of it. 00;24;15;21 – 00;24;38;10 Christian And it’s funny, I’ve seen this pattern before, but the more fun you have and the more positive vibes you put out, the bigger the fish you catch that they know, right? And yeah, it’s you can sit back and give people these shots and opportunities and you help them as much as you can and that’s awesome. The guys who I don’t get to pick up the rod as much as I would like, but when you do pick up around, it’s like almost like where did this fish come from? 00;24;38;10 – 00;24;55;28 Christian It’s like it’s been sent my way. So good vibes is is extremely important. Enjoy the places that you go to and and have fun. I mean it’s, it’s you’ve you’ve been privileged to get to these amazing places and you might as well just have fun and not put pressure on yourself right. 00;24;56;11 – 00;25;02;10 Dave That’s right And you Yeah. Because of what you’re doing there is you’re hosting a lot of trips. Is that kind of a lot of your travel includes hosting. 00;25;02;10 – 00;25;16;05 Christian Yeah, for sure. So so I think I just started as a guide and and putting in the hard graft. So my guiding career, full time guiding career, I would say lasted about six years. And in that time I did. 00;25;16;05 – 00;25;18;12 Dave And where was that? Where were you Guide and where do you start? 00;25;18;26 – 00;25;43;11 Christian Yeah, so I started guiding in 2019 and that was basically it consisted, let’s list suffering 12 And that’s kind of when I followed my so determined 11, I started guiding in this in a place called Sand Brennan. So basically Seychelles, if you can call it that. So full Seychelles season was about six months, which was split into two seasons. 00;25;43;12 – 00;26;12;01 Christian It’s spring in the fall season and then in between I did Kamchatka for nine weeks and then I also at that time I used to compete on the world fly fishing circuit. So that would kind of take me about three, three weeks out of my year traveling mainly in Europe and competing. And so I spent about 260, 280 days a year on the water for five years, and that was kind of my hard graft years where I did a lot of networking. 00;26;12;01 – 00;26;36;07 Christian I got to meet a lot of people in the industry that helped kind of built my career and my life the way it is now. And then slowly from there kind of. I always kept the little book and I kept contacts of I kept in touch with people that I felt like I really the time with, you know, it’s like you get to see a lot of clients, some you deal with, some you don’t. 00;26;36;07 – 00;27;01;13 Christian But there were always these handful of people throughout the season. It’s like those were the guys who got it, and I kind of stayed in touch with them. And over the years, I mean, they’ve become my clients and my really good friends, you know, Now I get to host these people to various parts of the world and so much so that they would email me and kind of ask me, Christian, why, what are we doing this year or what are we doing next year? 00;27;01;24 – 00;27;24;27 Christian And I know the capabilities, I know what they want, I know where they’ve been. So it’s really easy for me to give these guys the best time of their life because as I know, I know them and it’s personal. And so in saying that, I don’t often really just book random people, I, I’m very happy with a good clientele. 00;27;24;27 – 00;28;04;19 Christian And so if I look random, it might be through referrals from one of my existing clients or what the guys might be. But managing the groups is extremely important. And so sometimes the group dynamic can really make or break a trip. Unfortunately, people can be strange that way. So yeah, I mean, started hosting trips and now also recently in the I would say in the past two or three years I’ve had a lot of opportunities from lodges and outfitters reaching out for me to come and fish their place and and come check it out, you know, like give them honest feedback and tell people about the fishery, you know, and I’ve I’ve tried to be 00;28;04;19 – 00;28;23;08 Christian very authentic and pure and honest about places. And I think there’s a good time to be had at most fisheries, you know, it’s like you can badmouth places, but I think every single lodge has something special to offer. And and it’s your choice if you want to see it, if you want to identify it or not. 00;28;23;10 – 00;28;30;25 Dave Yeah, it seems like it’s hard. I mean, I kind of find that, too. It’s, it seems like it’s hard to have a bad time at a lodge. You’re going to a lodge, you know, no matter where it is, because. 00;28;30;25 – 00;28;32;29 Christian Oh, man, you got to you got to dig deep. 00;28;32;29 – 00;28;42;07 Dave Yeah, right. I mean, to think of that, you’re out there traveling for fly fishing to these places to have a bad time out there. Take a special right to take a certain type of person. It seems like. 00;28;42;17 – 00;28;52;03 Christian It really does. Yeah. And sometimes it’s. You just kind of want to. And then someone is like, I sit down and look around and like, we are we are we are so fortunate and privileged. 00;28;52;03 – 00;29;09;09 Dave Yeah, exactly. Wow. What was the the camp check is interesting too. I know we had Will Blair on the podcast recently and he was talking about, you know, we were talking about Kamchatka, we’re talking about maybe even doing a trip. And then the Russia stuff happened. But was that were you doing that for steelhead or rainbows? What was that trip? 00;29;09;21 – 00;29;29;13 Christian So I got that opportunity to go riding from Georgia back in 2014, and that was one of I would say the pinnacles of my career is being able to spend time in a place that’s visual speaking contract. I mean, for most people that know about this place or for most people that’s fly fishing, rainbow trout should know of Kamchatka. 00;29;29;13 – 00;29;51;14 Christian It is. It is as wild as it gets, I think, as far as a human footprint go on, on rivers and systems, I guided on a river called the Japan of River, which was like, It’s the trophy trout trophy. I’m a truck driver. And I did about a I think it was a 44 mile float. So we had seven fixed camps on this river. 00;29;51;29 – 00;30;16;02 Christian And in nine weeks at most, 65 people would fish that stretch of river. So talk about fresh on the river system and that it’s hardly any. It was the most insane 5 to 6 rainbow trout I’ve ever seen in my life. These fish were big, so on average, and this is a minus average, I would say was about 24 inches rainbow trout. 00;30;16;15 – 00;30;39;21 Christian And I always tell people what made it extremely special was the fact that you will lose count of fish in a week between 27 and 29 inches most of the time that you’ve got Joel, you’ve got your weeks where you’ve you’ve had whatever, a mudslide or there was a volcanic eruption and you’ve got glacial kind of issues or so those things happen anywhere in the world. 00;30;39;21 – 00;31;15;23 Christian You can you can have a dud week. But consistency in that place was was out of this world. So, yeah, Kamchatka I mean, I can’t wait to go back and I’ve had some South African clients that’s been going the past two years and the report was as expected, phenomenal. And no one has really fished that up report. So it’s, it’s nice to know out of a very kind of negative scenario of wars going on this is positive at the end like the fish gets a break you know so it sounds like everything’s good and healthy and. 00;31;15;23 – 00;31;33;23 Dave Kamchatka Exactly. You’ve traveled around all these places. I think a you know, something we hear a lot about, we talk a lot about is conservation and changes, you know, climate change, stuff like that. Have you seen that in some of these places? You’ve been going to these places now for really quite a number of years. Have you seen some of these changes? 00;31;33;23 – 00;31;43;22 Dave And what do you how do you look at that? Do you think There are some things we can do? I mainly talk about the rainforest. We hear these stories about the rainforest getting cut down and all that stuff right in the Amazon, everything. 00;31;44;05 – 00;32;07;03 Christian Yeah, I think I mean if it to put it, I mean for a pallet too, I mean it’s, it’s simple but you really as it told it pretty straight up he’s like the biggest prime news the world is us the people and that’s that’s as simple as it gets you know like we we leave a footprint. Does it matter how we do it Even in the Seychelles, You know, it’s the smallest things when he’s the guy there, you’re running off the jetties. 00;32;07;03 – 00;32;16;02 Christian But the theme of the day is still standing on coral. So there’s there’s a footprint. There’s always we do leave a footprint, but you have to be very conscious about it. 00;32;16;06 – 00;32;27;05 Dave Yeah. Is that what happened down there, The Seychelles? It sounds like that’s changed a lot. I mean, you’ve you’re probably the best person to to talk about changes, but is that what happened? Just a lot of pressure and impacts from mostly. 00;32;27;05 – 00;32;48;05 Christian Do you believe that pressure is the biggest issue in the Seychelles? For sure and it is still to this day. So this is the funny thing. Like it was ridiculous back in the day, even before my time. Like if I go back ten years, ten years ago, the stories of 20 years ago then was, oh, it’s unbelievable. 00;32;48;05 – 00;32;53;17 Dave So like permit fishing was great, or is it now permit? Is that, is that now there’s like gtis is the big thing. 00;32;53;18 – 00;33;16;28 Christian It’s G So GTC is kind of, I would say the main kind of a draw to the Seychelles. But, but there’s so much more. I mean, for me it was the variety of species. But these stories of back in the day, legendary stories of catch seem like 600 jetties a week. So between 12 and, you know, like statistics like that, that’s, that’s mentally hard to kind of fathom. 00;33;16;28 – 00;33;20;14 Dave And what is it like now if you were to go out there now, what would it be? On average. 00;33;20;22 – 00;33;43;09 Christian I would say to give you an idea. So my best weeks ever, they had two back to back hosted weeks in 2021 on Providence and Atoll and we had 322 jetties in two weeks. I don’t honestly think those numbers will ever show itself again. The average, I would say the average person can expect and this would be a good week. 00;33;43;26 – 00;34;03;02 Christian I would say about five of these a week for 12 years. I mean, you’re going to look at your like 60 to 70 jetties a week, which is and this is the funny thing, you know, it’s like those numbers are shockingly bad in a way compared to what it used to be. But in the same sentence, it’s still the best fishery in the world. 00;34;03;02 – 00;34;05;14 Dave I mean, yeah, it’s five x, you know what it was at. 00;34;05;18 – 00;34;06;06 Christian Exactly. 00;34;06;06 – 00;34;08;07 Dave But it’s still so good. Yeah. 00;34;08;18 – 00;34;31;22 Christian So the funny thing with conservation is and which this is my take on what a lot of places are doing, and it’s actually one of the frankly, the best ways of conserving these places is jacking up the prices. You know, so what happens is the Seychelles and and angling, there’s a lot of these companies, I think they’re jacking up the prices to a point where if they don’t get as many bookings anymore, it’s still okay. 00;34;31;27 – 00;34;47;19 Christian You know, they still going to make their money. But at the end of the day, they’re going to probably be getting less people fishing the flat. So charge it more did less people in, but they make the same amount of money. So that could be a way of like seeing. That’s my take on it. 00;34;47;22 – 00;35;01;17 Dave It’s interesting with the because you can take that to other levels of, you know like the pay to play thing, right. Some of these places where like in the U.S. there’s a lot of public waters that are out there. But then if you take it to say England, which have a lot of private waters, you got to pay. 00;35;01;17 – 00;35;14;05 Dave Like if you’re going to Norway, you know another example, right? You got to pay a lot of money. My goodness, a fish. But right. So it’s a challenge because like, you know, a lot of people want to fish there, but they can’t because they don’t have enough money. And so I feel like there’s that constant struggle. But you’re right. 00;35;14;05 – 00;35;20;17 Dave I mean, the more I think if you get to a point, you’ve got to do something right to permit or keep the number of anglers off the waterway. 00;35;20;17 – 00;35;37;07 Christian Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s sad. I mean, you you see, you know, if you spend enough time on these fisheries, you kind of know what they are capable of handling to some extent. You know, I know I’m not scientist or anything, but you could we could clearly see throughout the season like the numbers going down. 00;35;37;14 – 00;35;51;17 Dave Is there a government over there? Is that how it I mean, we’ve talked about that in in the U.S. and Canada, where the governments try to do some restriction, like whether that’s Atlantic salmon fishing, having certain you know people can do. Yeah. Yeah right. Do you have that is the Seychelles have that same thing. 00;35;51;17 – 00;36;27;15 Christian So the Seychelles is its own country and it’s got a government and all those things and all these outer atolls. I mean correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe most of these outer atolls are managed by a company called the IDC, the Island Development Company and Access. So they’ve, they’ve got these smaller little companies, which is government funded and they kind of they protect the atolls in the way of like there’s no other vessels are allowed to be within a certain kind of distance from these specific atolls. 00;36;27;28 – 00;36;29;22 Christian They’re not allowed to fish on the flats. 00;36;29;22 – 00;36;34;09 Dave So these are for fly fishing that these groups are. You take them for fishing or fly fishing or. 00;36;34;10 – 00;37;02;03 Christian Yeah. So safari and there’s a, there’s two main companies that run the charters in the Seychelles. I would say the, the main one is Blue Safari, which used to be called Alphonse Fishing Company. Oh yeah. So they run most of the fly fishing on these apples and they control how many people get to these flats. And there’s I don’t think there’s really a restriction from the government as far as how people they can put on the flats. 00;37;02;14 – 00;37;38;05 Christian And I think they’ve found healthy to some extent, especially on like Alfonse Fishing Island, they found a healthy balance of how many people they can really put through in a season and that fishery surprises and still blows my mind where it has been hit so hard over the past 20 years. But it it fish is probably better now than ever before because they’ve managed it in a way where they know what this atoll can tolerate and the guides have become obviously so dialed in spending that much time, they know the tides better than ever before. 00;37;38;05 – 00;37;43;27 Christian So the the whole understanding of this one atoll in specific is is amazing to see. 00;37;45;25 – 00;38;04;09 Dave Big shout out to Smitty’s fly box. They’ve quietly become one of my favorite places to grab fliers and tying materials online. The Smitty’s experience is simple, clean, and it’s all the stuff you actually use patterns that fish well, solid hooks, tungsten beads, dubbing foam feathers, tools, none of the stuff you don’t need, and all the stuff you do. 00;38;04;17 – 00;38;25;13 Dave And the cool thing is these fliers and materials come from folks who fish the same waters we do there. Patterns are built around real conditions, cool mornings, slow afternoons and picky fish. So if you’re looking to restock for the season or just want to refresh the bench before your next tagging session, check out Smitty’s fly boxcars. They’ve got nips, dries, warm water, patterned streamers and everything you need to tie your own. 00;38;25;24 – 00;38;58;18 Dave You can head over to wet Fae swing dot.com slash right now. That’s s m as in Mama i t t y as in yes. 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You can head over to Montana, fly fishing, lodge e-comm right now and check in with them and see what they have available. That’s Montana fly fishing lodge, dot.com. What about, you know, people that are listening here that maybe haven’t been to some of these places? If you had to break it down to say, you know, these are we talked a few of the places you like, but what do you think are the the easier places that you’ve been to that are doable? 00;39;54;29 – 00;40;00;00 Dave You know, something like this, maybe the Seychelles might be a little far out there for some experience. Yeah. 00;40;00;13 – 01;10;33;03 Christian Yeah, for sure. I would say the Seychelles is like one of those Premier. Definitely the premier destination. It’s like the pinnacle.