Alaska trout fishing changes throughout the season, and Caleb Hitzfeld has spent nearly two decades watching those changes firsthand. In this episode, Caleb explains how salmon fry, insects, mice, eggs, and streamers shape Alaska trout fishing. No See Um Lodge also shares how the lodge’s fly-out program gives anglers access to different rivers. The conversation begins with Caleb’s journey from Texas to Alaska and eventually to owning No See Um Lodge.
[00:01:48] Caleb’s story began in Texas, where he started fly fishing for bass and bluegill before trout gradually became the main focus. His early trips across the West laid the foundation for his interest in Alaska trout fishing and eventually led him to work at Lee’s Ferry Anglers on the Colorado River.
At Lee’s Ferry, the owners had worked and fished in Alaska, often finishing there, and they often talked about their experiences. Those conversations helped spark Caleb’s interest in Alaska trout fishing, and at 23, he took a job on the Alagnak River. After four years there, an opening came up at No See Um Lodge, and Caleb made the move that would eventually lead to ownership.
[00:04:18] Caleb arrived at No See Um Lodge in 2008 and spent years working there before beginning conversations with the owners about buying the operation. The purchase closed the previous April, making this his second season operating the lodge as an owner. That long experience gives Caleb a deep connection to Alaska trout fishing and the rivers around the lodge. He has spent years watching the salmon cycles, learning the different rivers, and understanding how the fish respond as conditions change.
[00:07:04] Most guests come to No See Um Lodge to fish for rainbow trout and Arctic char. Caleb says it’s roughly a 100-mile radius. That gives the guides access to different rivers and different opportunities rather than relying on one stretch of water.
[00:07:53] The No See Um program begins with a floatplane ride. The lodge operates three Beaver floatplanes, with each plane able to carry four anglers, two guides, and a pilot before heading to a different river for the day. That fly-out system is a part of the Alaska trout fishing experience at No See Um. The plane stays with the group and returns later in the day, allowing anglers to explore multiple rivers during their stay.
[00:08:42] The trout season opens on June 8, and early Alaska trout fishing is strongly influenced by salmon fry. Millions of tiny sockeye salmon fry move through the smaller creeks and rivers, providing an important food source for the trout. As June progresses, the food sources begin to change. Alaska trout fishing can shift from fry and streamers toward stoneflies, caddis, mayflies, and other insects as hatches develop on different rivers.
[00:09:53] The timing of the salmon runs can change the fishing from one river to another. If sockeye aren’t spawning yet, trout may focus more on bugs, baitfish, or other available food. This is one of the key lessons of Alaska trout fishing: anglers need to pay attention to what is happening in the river rather than assuming one technique will work all season. The food source helps determine what the trout are looking for.
[00:10:28] The sockeye fry Caleb describes are extremely small, roughly half an inch long and very thin-bodied. The flies used to imitate them are similarly sparse and are often fished close to the surface. For Alaska trout fishing in June, the presentation can be simple but precise. Caleb describes swinging these small-fry patterns in the film as trout move toward the surface to feed on young salmon.
[00:11:49] Swinging flies is an important part of Alaska trout fishing early in the season, and the technique comes back into play in September. As the salmon begin to thin out, Caleb says anglers can again find success with larger flies, including bunny leeches and flesh flies. This creates two useful windows for Alaska trout fishing with a swung fly. Early season can mean smaller fry imitations, while late season opens the door to larger streamers and flesh patterns.
[00:12:23] Caleb uses both single-hand and two-hand rods. Single-hand setups commonly include 9- to 9.5-foot, 6- to 7-weight rods Two-hand rods range from approximately 11.5-foot 5- or 6-weight rods up to 12.5- or 13-foot 7-weight rods. The right setup depends on the river, fish size, sink tips, and flies. For larger rivers, Alaska trout fishing may call for heavier sink tips, longer rods, and heavier heads that can turn those sink tips over effectively.
[00:13:40] Early and late seasons provide the strongest opportunities for swinging flies. August is different because trout are often focused on salmon eggs, although anglers can still catch fish on a swung fly if they want to fish that way. For Alaska trout fishing, this is another example of matching the technique to the food source. When eggs are abundant, they can be more attractive to trout than a swung fly, so expectations need to change with the season.
[00:14:20] Late June and July can provide good opportunities for mousing on some rivers. Instead of stripping a mouse like a traditional streamer, Caleb describes skating it down and across the bank. The mouse is essentially a floating streamer, and the takes can be aggressive. For Alaska trout fishing, mousing adds another surface option to a season already filled with different presentations.
[00:15:12] Rainbow trout commonly measure between 18 and 24 inches in the rivers Caleb fishes. Fish in the 26- to 28-inch range are possible, while some rivers produce rainbows in the low 30-inch range. These are wild, which adds another dimension to Alaska trout fishing. Caleb points out that even a smaller rainbow can be an incredible fish when it eats a mouse or takes a swung fly.
[00:16:43] No See Um Lodge began in 1975 when Jack Holman, a school teacher, purchased the property from a homesteader living along the Jack River. The operation began as a rustic venture, with most fishing done by boat on the nearby river. After several years, Jack recognized the value of using airplanes to reach more fishing locations. The lodge eventually expanded its fly-out program, which helped turn Alaska trout fishing into a broader multi-river experience for guests.
[00:18:48] Jack operated the lodge until 2007 before selling it to his son, John. John expanded the operation, eventually increasing the capacity to 12 guests and helping develop the aircraft program. Caleb and his partners later expanded the fleet to three Beaver floatplanes. The goal was to have enough aircraft capacity to serve the anglers staying at the lodge without repeatedly running double trips.
[00:19:56] One advantage of the fly-out system is flexibility. Caleb explains that a group may leave the lodge with one destination in mind, only to discover poor weather or disappointing fishing and decide to move somewhere else. That flexibility can make a major difference in Alaska trout fishing. Rather than committing to one river for the entire day, guides can make decisions based on current conditions and try to make the most of the available fishing.
[00:21:15] American Creek and Moraine Creek are among the other recognizable waters Caleb mentions alongside the Jack, Naknek, and Brooks Rivers. These rivers are connected to the larger ecosystem that makes Bristol Bay fly fishing and Alaska trout fishing so productive. Strong sockeye runs provide large amounts of food for the trout. Caleb says the fish have been particularly healthy and heavy in recent years, including early in the season.
[00:22:15] The number of salmon in the system can have a major influence on Alaska trout fishing. Caleb says strong sockeye returns provide trout with dry, smolt, eggs, and other food throughout the season. The result is healthy wild rainbows with plenty of food available. For Alaska trout fishing, understanding the salmon cycle is therefore just as important as knowing which fly to tie on.
[00:22:15] Pike are present in the region, although they are not a major part of the No See Um program. Caleb says some smaller but deeper ponds contain pike that survive under the ice, and certain destinations provide opportunities to catch them for a few hours. The main focus remains Alaska trout fishing, along with Arctic char and seasonal salmon. Pike offer an occasional way to diversify a trip without changing the lodge’s overall focus.
[00:27:31] Some char are present throughout the season, while others move into smaller creeks around early to mid-July. They may stay for several weeks before dropping back into a lake or larger river once the salmon cycle changes. Other fish move into certain areas later in September when salmon begin spawning. This timing creates another seasonal layer to Alaska trout fishing and gives anglers different opportunities as the summer progresses.
[00:29:30] Char in the smaller creeks are commonly around 18 to 24 inches, while some other destinations produce fish in the 30-inch range and occasionally into the mid-30s. They fight differently from rainbows. Caleb describes them as strong fish that pull hard and shake their heads, even though they do not jump as much as rainbow trout.
[00:30:15] Smaller creeks can become extremely productive in July and August when char move into them. Caleb says anglers can catch a lot of fish in a day when the conditions are right. When the char are in the river and feeding on eggs, Alaska trout fishing can become fast and productive. These smaller creeks demonstrate how much the salmon cycle can change the fishing from one location to another.
[00:30:54] Many of the rivers Caleb fishes are part of larger lakes and feeder-creek systems. Sockeye move through the main rivers into lakes such as Lake Iliamna and then into feeder creeks where they spawn. The fry later drop out, spend the winter in the lake, and migrate through the main river the following year. The Jack River is somewhat different because sockeye spawn in the main river, with backwaters providing habitat where they can survive until they become smolts.
[00:32:05] The rainbows and char have their own seasonal movements. Caleb explains that trout spawn in spring, feed on salmon fry and smolts, and may then return to Lake Iliamna before moving back toward the river when salmon begin spawning. That movement is one reason Alaska trout fishing cannot be viewed as one static fishery. Fish respond to salmon movement, food availability, and seasonal changes, and guides must adjust accordingly.
[00:33:31] Trout spawn in the spring in the main river and in some of the smaller streams that flow into Lake Iliamna. After spawning, they can remain in those systems while feeding on the salmon fry moving through them. In some rivers, trout eventually drop back into the lake and return later when salmon begin moving upstream again. This seasonal movement is central to understanding Alaska trout fishing.
[00:34:22] Some rivers have abundant insect life, allowing trout to remain in them throughout the season. Other rivers have fewer bugs, so trout may move back toward the lakes after the salmon fry move through. This is why Alaska trout fishing is so different, and the fly-out program lets guides choose between them.
[00:35:14] Caleb says late June and early July probably offer the greatest variety of techniques. An angler might swing or strip a sculpin, fish nymphs under an indicator, switch to dry flies, and even skate a mouse during the same day. August shifts toward egg patterns, while September brings opportunities with big streamers, bunny leeches, and flesh flies. Alaska trout fishing therefore changes dramatically even within one season.
No See Um Lodge offers salmon opportunities, depending on timing and river conditions. King salmon fishing has become very limited because returns have been poor for several years, while other salmon species remain available depending on when guests visit. For anglers planning Alaska trout fishing, this means salmon can provide another seasonal option without taking over the entire trip. The main focus at No See Um Lodge remains trout and char.
[00:37:35] The standard program is seven nights with six days of fishing. Caleb also describes shorter five-night, four-day packages, giving guests another way to experience the lodge. For the full-week program, guests fly from Anchorage to King Salmon on a charter, then take a floatplane to the lodge. After six days of Alaska trout fishing, the group returns to King Salmon and then flies back to Anchorage.
[00:42:22] There are days when Caleb and his guests are dropped off on a river or hike into an area where there is nobody else around. The landscape’s size and isolation can make people feel very small. That feeling is difficult to separate from Alaska trout fishing. The fish are important, but so is the experience of being somewhere wild, remote, and far removed from the roads and crowds found on many other fishing trips.
[00:43:02] Brown bears are part of the experience, particularly from the middle of July through the end of the season. Caleb says the bears generally have little interest in people because so much salmon is available to them. For Alaska trout fishing, guides still pay close attention to what the bears are doing. The goal is to give the animals plenty of space while allowing guests to enjoy seeing them in their environment.
[00:45:04] Brooks River is one of the most famous locations for seeing brown bears catch salmon. Caleb mentions a live stream that lets people watch the bears at the falls even when they are not in Alaska. Guests can sometimes watch bears while fishing, but there is an important rule: when a bear gets close, the fishing stops. You don’t want to hook a fish directly in front of a bear while fishing for trout in Alaska.
[00:46:21] Bears are not limited to Brooks River. Caleb says many of the smaller rivers they fish can have bears nearby, particularly from mid-July onwards. Some days may see only a few bears, while other days they may see dozens. That makes Alaska trout fishing an experience where wildlife can become part of the day without being the primary reason for the trip.
[00:47:03] For anglers interested in swinging flies, early season is a good opportunity because the trout have not seen flies for months. Caleb emphasizes making good casts and controlling what the fly does once it lands. That basic approach applies directly to Alaska trout fishing with a swung fly. A clean presentation gives the fly a better chance to fish properly and puts.
[00:48:02] Caleb compares Alaska trout fishing to winter steelhead fishing: the more time the fly spends in the water, the better the odds. Sometimes anglers can target individual fish, but good casts and fly control still matter. He recommends making the cast land fairly straight rather than creating a pile of slack. A mend or extra line can help the fly sink before it moves through the zone where the fish are holding.
[00:48:46] A successful Alaska trout fishing cast is not simply about the distance. Caleb explains that the fly should land in a way that lets the angler control how it fishes through the target zone. The goal is to avoid a large pile of slack followed by hoping for the best. The fly needs to get where it needs to go and fish correctly once it lands.
[00:49:51] Caleb says Alaska is a friendly destination for anglers who may not have extensive experience. Someone who has never fly-fished can still have a good day, while experienced anglers have plenty of opportunities to challenge themselves. That range of skill levels is one reason Alaska trout fishing can appeal to different types of anglers. Guides can adjust their approach based on the experience of the person holding the rod.
[00:50:27] No See Um does not focus on hardware fishing. The program focuses on fly fishing, and some rivers in the parks are fly-fishing-only waters. That makes the lodge particularly focused on fly-fishing for Alaska trout. Guests can arrive with very different skill levels, but common thread is the fly-fishing approach.
[00:51:15] Caleb guides throughout the season and says that being on the rivers is important because it allows him to see what is happening firsthand. The other guides provide valuable feedback, but personal observation helps him understand changing conditions. That firsthand experience is especially useful for Alaska trout fishing because conditions can change quickly. Regularly fishing different rivers helps the guides make better decisions about where to fish and which techniques to use.
[00:55:21] When asked about an all-around fly, Caleb points to rabbit-strip leeches, particularly Dalai Lamas. He says different sizes and colors can work in many places throughout the year. For Alaska trout fishing, the Dalai Lama offers movement, flash, and plenty of versatility. Caleb mentions combinations including black and white, black and green, and different flesh-inspired colors.
[00:54:02] The lodge generally closes around the end of September. Caleb says the final group for this season leaves on September 28, although some years the lodge remains open into the first week of October. Late September and early October can still provide excellent Alaska trout fishing, although the number of available destinations becomes more limited. The rivers that remain fishable can be extremely productive.
[00:54:52] After the season, the lodge is closed and winterized. The airplanes fly north of Anchorage; the team does the same the next season. The season cycle is another part of Alaska trout fishing that guests rarely see. The fishing season may end in September, but the work of preparing the lodge, aircraft, and operation continues before the next summer begins.
[00:55:21] Caleb has also started learning to fly. He says he isn’t flying for the lodge yet, but he’s working toward it. For someone who has spent so much time around Alaska trout fishing and floatplanes, learning to fly adds another interesting part to Caleb’s story. The connection between aviation and fishing is built into the No See Um operation.
Episode Transcript
00:00:00 Dave: The Jack River is famous for its wild Alaska rainbows and swinging flies. Here changes with the season, from tiny salmon fry patterns near the surface to big leeches and flesh flies as fall settles into Bristol Bay. Today we’re going to find out when to bring the Spey rod, how these rainbows move between the river and Lake Iliamna, and how a fly-out program opens up some of the most famous trout waters in Alaska. 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. Caleb Hitzfeld is the owner of No See Um Lodge, a lodge that dates back to nineteen seventy-five. Caleb first came to No See Um in two thousand and eight after guiding on the Alagnak. Nearly two decades later, he’s helping carry the Lodge into the next chapter. Today, Caleb is going to talk about the trout game. We’re going to focus on breaking down early-season swinging when millions of tiny sockeye fry are moving through the system. We’re also going to find out what space setups he likes to use from the lighter eleven-and-a-half-foot range, all the way up to thirteen-footers. Caleb is also going to walk us through the seasonal progression of salmon fry, to hatches, to mice, to eggs, and eventually back to streamers. We’re going to get into the whole cycle of the season. And plus, we’re going to hear what a big key Jack area rainbow really looks like, including fish reaching into the upper twenties and occasionally breaking the thirty-inch mark. Caleb has spent nearly twenty years learning these rivers, watching the salmon cycles and figuring out where to put the time in. You can find Caleb at No. C m lodge dot com. Here we go. Here’s Caleb. How are you doing, Caleb? 00:01:46 Caleb: Doing great. How are you, Dave? 00:01:48 Dave: Great. Great to have you on here. Finally. We’ve been chatting about this. Yeah. We’ve been, uh, you know, I’ve heard a lot about your area. I mean, obviously, you’re up in a pretty amazing part of the world In Alaska, we’re going to talk about where you’re located with your lodge. You got a cool history. I think the history of the lodge is amazing. We’re going to talk about that, how old it is and the history there. And then also you’re on the kayak and you guys have this fly out program. So I think today we’re going to be the struggle is going to be to get around to everything. But maybe before we jump into it, give us a little update on, you know, how you came to be owning a lodge up in Alaska. 00:02:22 Caleb: Yeah. So, um, you know, like a lot of the things probably for a lot of people, pretty long story kind of convoluted. But, um, I grew up in Texas. I started fly fishing, you know, pretty early age, you know, a lot of bass and bluegills and stuff like that. And then, um, we started when I was in my early teens, you know, we started doing trips all over the west, camping and fishing and hiking and for weeks in the summer and just, you know, fly fishing just kind of took over, especially for trout and, and so, you know, I sort of I got more and more into it and, and, um. Let’s see, I think I was twenty years old. I got a job at Lee’s Ferry anglers on the Colorado River, worked in their fly shop and started guiding for them a little bit. And then, um, the owners had worked up in Alaska and done a lot of trips up here. And, and, you know, we’re always talking about how great it was. And, and I, you know, I just really wanted to come up after all that here and all that. And so I got a job on the Alagnak River. I think I was twenty three and did four years there. You know, we did a lot of fishing for kings, but we also flew out and trout fished and, and did a lot of the other stuff, you know, kind of in the same area that we’re in here now. And, and we, they worked sort of, you know, they kind of worked with no CM Lodge somewhat. And so I got to know these guys. I knew a couple, a couple guys that guided here as well. And, um, after four years on the Alagnak, when they had a spot open at no. CM, you know, I jumped on it. So and I’ve been here ever since. I think that was two thousand and eight was my first year at no. CM and yeah, so. 00:04:17 Dave: We’re going on twenty years. 00:04:18 Caleb: Yep. Nearly twenty years. So wow. You know, and so did, you know, worked here for years. And, and the last, you know, say about three years ago, we kind of started talking, you know, with the, with the owners about, about maybe buying it and taking it over and, and, um, and so we closed, we ended up last closing on everything last April. So right now we’re in our second year, second season operating as owners. 00:04:49 Dave: Wow, that’s pretty amazing. So you just took us here. I’m just looking at now Texas to Lee’s Ferry, which is amazing. I mean, actually, you’re talking about some areas that I mean, Texas is amazing. Lee’s ferry, I mean, the Colorado you’re talking about a talk about a famous place, right? The history there with the we did a whole series of episodes on the boat building and drift boats and those dories going down the Grand Canyon. Right. And the Colorado is amazing. You probably are. Did you see some of that when you were in the Lee’s ferry area? 00:05:15 Caleb: Yeah. So, um, we saw some of that, you know, um, basically the, you know, all the trout fishing we did was from Lee’s Ferry upriver, you know, but, but all the float trips start at the same place. They just obviously go downriver. 00:05:31 Dave: Is Lee’s Ferry one of the places where a lot of those boats are put. And I go back to Martin Linton and all that history out there in the canyon. Right. Is that where a lot of those big trips are starting at Lee’s Ferry? 00:05:41 Caleb: Yeah, they all start right there in the same place. 00:05:44 Dave: That’s cool. 00:05:45 Caleb: So yeah, you’d see, you know, people setting up for anywhere from a week long trip to multiple weeks, you know, just piling up gear and and loading up boats, you know. 00:05:56 Dave: That’s right. Did you ever do one of those, uh, those long whatever it is, two week floats down through there. 00:06:02 Caleb: I never did. Yeah, I was there. I worked there for um, I think about three years and, um, I just, I had a couple opportunities, you know, where somebody needed, they just needed like a swamper or whatever, you know, and I just couldn’t make it work. It was always last minute. So unfortunately. 00:06:20 Dave: Gotcha. Well, there’s, there’s always time right late at a later point. Yeah. I haven’t done it yet. I’ve when we did that series on drift boats and stuff, I remember we talked to a few people that wrote some books and stuff and I was like, all right, that’s on my list. And I haven’t done it yet either. But it’s, it’s definitely one of those places. But I mean, you’re really actually, you know, you’re in another one of those places, right? I mean, the jack, I mean, the area you’re at, you’re probably in one of the I mean, you know, I’d say Alaska is probably the top destination for people when they think about where they want to go. So you’re, you know, you’re already in that place, but. And then you hit the lag neck and then now no. See him. Um, right. What is it about? You know, what are people coming there to your lodge? What is the the big thing people are coming up there for? Do you think is there one species or one? One. 00:07:04 Caleb: Yeah. You know, most people are coming up to to fish for rainbows. I’d say, you know, we rainbows and char and Arctic char, you know, probably eighty percent of our fishing is for for trout. You know, we do we do a little bit of salmon fishing, you know, depending on, on what’s in the rivers at the time. You know, people might spend one day out of their week catching silvers or, you know, whatever. But, um, but for the most part, we’re targeting trout and char in the rivers, you know, in about a one hundred mile radius from the lodge, more or less. 00:07:43 Dave: Wow. So you guys are each day, is it one of those things where you’re at the lodge and people decide if they want to fly out or if they want to stay and they’re kind of mixing it up throughout the week. 00:07:53 Caleb: Uh, kind of, I mean, we, we fly out pretty much every day. You know, whether depending, obviously, but most all of our fishing is done, you know, it starts with an airplane ride somewhere. 00:08:05 Dave: Oh it does. Right. So you’re going to get an airplane ride for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. And these are all floatplanes right. Heading out on floatplanes from there. 00:08:12 Caleb: Correct. Yeah. We have three um three beavers on floats. We can put four anglers, two guides and a pilot in each one. And the airplane goes out and, you know, each day and takes you to a different river and, um, you know, stays with you there and brings you home at the end of the day. So pretty nice deal. 00:08:32 Dave: Yeah, it’s pretty nice. What is the, um, the style of rainbow fishing? Does it depend on where you’re going or do you have a technique that you. Probably depends a little bit on the time of year. 00:08:42 Caleb: Yeah. It depends a lot on the time of year, you know, and also somewhat on, you know, on the rivers that you’re fishing. You know, some things work better some places than others, but we do a little bit of everything. You know, we, we open, uh, trout season opens June eighth, and we usually open the lodge somewhere right around then. And so the early season trout fishing, you know, is a lot of streamer fishing, a lot of, uh, salmon fry. There’s millions of sockeye salmon fry coming down the little creeks and rivers that we fish. And, um, and so that’s what the fish are eating early and, you know, in June and then kind of as you get towards the end of June, some places they start eating, you know, bugs. Um, we get some pretty good hatches on some rivers, stoneflies, caddis mayflies, and that’ll continue through, you know, almost the end of July and some places even later. I mean, uh, I think about just a few days ago, we were still catching fish on dry flies on one of the rivers we fish. So. 00:09:49 Dave: Oh, cool. And right now as we speak, it’s kind of mid August, right. 00:09:53 Caleb: You know, that’s probably later than normal. Um, but it just depends, you know, a lot on when the, when the sockeyes get into these smaller tributaries and when they actually start, you know, spawning. So if the salmon aren’t laying eggs, then the, the fish, you know, they’re going to eat whatever else is there, bugs or baitfish or whatever. 00:10:13 Dave: So that’s what it comes down to. So it’s all about the salmon at least early. So when they’re not there they’re just going for the bugs. And you got streamers imitating the the fry. Right. You mentioned that. So you got these fry that are also outmigrating right. Because they’re coming down from the spawn. 00:10:28 Caleb: Yeah, yeah. So the, you know, we fish these really small fry patterns. I mean, a lot of them are just like, maybe they’re really sparse. The sockeye fry are, you know, maybe half an inch long and really thin bodied. And so you, you kind of fish those. A lot of the time in the film, you sort of swing them. 00:10:49 Dave: Oh, cool. So you’re actually swinging these flies for like imitating fry and swinging them on the wet fly. 00:10:54 Caleb: Right. Exactly. Pretty similar. Yeah. And then, you know, there’s some other different ways to fish them. But, um, but for the most part, those fry up near the surface when they’re moving and, and that’s where the fish are eating them, you know, so, and that’s kind of an early season deal. And then, you know, like I said, July kind of transitions into bugs and still fishing streamers. I mean, they’re still eating sculpins and, you know, other bait fish. But, um, and then as we get into August, they’re mostly eating eggs and it becomes a, you know, your. 00:11:28 Dave: Eggs. 00:11:29 Caleb: If you want. Yeah, exactly. Your fishing eggs, egg pattern. 00:11:32 Dave: So egg patterns and you got to. 00:11:34 Caleb: Write. 00:11:34 Dave: All that stuff. That’s cool. So, so it sounds like is if you want to hit, if you want to swing, we definitely have a good contingent of listeners who love swinging flies, you know, whether that’s with a spade, you know, or whatever, But, um, it sounds like that’s an early season thing. You want to be hitting that early to hit to get the swing. 00:11:49 Caleb: Yeah, it’s good early. And then it starts up again on some of the rivers we fish in September, we start swinging big bunny leeches and things like that again in the fall. Big flush flies. Gotcha. Once the salmon start to thin out in some places, then you can start catching them again, catching rainbows again with, you know, big streamers. 00:12:10 Dave: There you go. So there’s there’s a couple ends there. And yeah, what is the gear? I mean, it probably depends Bunny the later versus the early what sort of rod is this? Are the guys using the Spey set up? Is it mostly single hand? What does that look like? 00:12:23 Caleb: Yeah. So some of both I’d say, you know, for, for a lot of the single hand fishing, uh, you know, a nine, nine and a half foot six or seven weight covers most all of it. And then on the two hand side, anywhere from, you know, a five or a six weight eleven and a half footer to a, you know, twelve and a half, Thirteen foot seven weight right. So pretty big range. It depends a lot on the river you’re fishing and the size of the river. Obviously the size of the fish that you might run into. And also the sink tips and, and flies that you’re fishing. Right. 00:13:01 Dave: So right. 00:13:01 Caleb: Some of the bigger rivers, you, you know, you need to, you need to use heavier sink tips and those rods that are a little longer and use a little heavier, heavier heads, turn those sink tips over easier. 00:13:13 Dave: So yep. That’s it. That’s the cool thing about the Spey as it’s evolved over the years is that it’s gotten lighter and lighter, right? That’s, you know, maybe the one outfit that’s gotten, you know, it’s just so nice to fish a Spey rod these days because they’re all pretty light, you know, even a thirteen foot, even a thirteen foot seven weight, you know? Right. You’re saying so, so people that are listening, they could probably, if they were gonna, if they’re interested in this, they could probably bring their spey up there and have a shot. It sounds like. 00:13:40 Caleb: Yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of opportunities for it. You know, early season, late season, especially early and late. And then, um, you know, kind of throughout the summer, once you get into August, you know, there’s some places where you, if you really want to catch fish, you know, swinging a fly, you can still do it, but it’s definitely, you know, they want to eat eggs and, you know, so. 00:14:05 Dave: Right. Yeah, there it’s like, like, like they’re opportunistic, right? If there’s a bunch of millions of eggs, they’re gonna take those before they’re going to hit a swung fly. Even though I’m sure you could probably get some on swinging fly still. 00:14:15 Caleb: Right, exactly. You can still pick up a few, but, um. 00:14:19 Dave: Still pick them up. 00:14:20 Caleb: Yeah. And then, you know, kind of throughout the, I’d say especially late in June and July, you know, the, the mice fishing can be good on some of the rivers. We fish as well. We didn’t, I kind of skipped over that. 00:14:33 Dave: But yeah, the mice. Right. There’s another big. Right. You got the mice. So that’s a more of a casting and stripping sort of thing. 00:14:39 Caleb: Uh, you know, it’s more of a skating. So you kind of, you know, you quarter it down, skate it off of the banks. It’s pretty, you know, pretty similar to how you would fish streamers here. But it’s on the surface and, you know, pretty aggressive takes, right. So sort of a floating floating streamer almost. That’s kind of how I look at it. 00:14:59 Dave: But so you can get a little bit of that. Yeah. The swinging action there too. What is the, you know, Alaska, obviously you hear some of these places about the size of fish, right? Do you guys what’s that look like up there? Do you get some pretty decent size fish or what’s average. What’s big fish up there. 00:15:12 Caleb: Yeah we we do for sure. You know it, it varies a lot river to river. But I’d say, you know most rivers, you know, the fish are between you know, eighteen and twenty four inches is pretty standard rainbow on most of the rivers we fish, we see a lot of fish into the, you know, twenty six, twenty seven inch range, twenty eight. And then some of the rivers we fish, you know, we see fish into the low thirty inch range, you know, so right. 00:15:45 Dave: Which is the thirty is always the that’s that one that seems like it’s real. It’s hard to find. You know, it is. Yeah. Thirty right. No matter where you are pretty much in the world, you know, I think thirty is just is the tough one. That’s that that lane. Right? If you get that, you pretty much hit the home run or the grand slam, right? 00:16:02 Caleb: Yeah, exactly. They’re not you know, I mean, a fish that’s thirty thirty one inches is a pretty old fish. Not too many of them get a whole lot bigger than that, you know. 00:16:10 Dave: No that’s right. But like a lot of these places, you know, it’s not size isn’t the critical factor. You know, I mean, getting a, like you said, a twenty four inch fish on a mouse, right? Right. Would be epic. 00:16:22 Caleb: So yeah, you know, and they’re, they’re all wild fish. They’re, you know, you’re catching them where they belong. I mean, it’s a pretty special deal, you know. 00:16:29 Dave: So yeah, it is. There’s a lot of history there with no CM Lodge. Right. I talk about that a little bit because I’m sure you know the history. Didn’t it start kind of back in the seventies. Maybe you could just walk us through that? Sure. Who was the original owner and, you know, and all that stuff? 00:16:43 Caleb: Yeah. So, um, the lodge started in nineteen seventy five. The guy who started it was named Jack Holman. He was a school teacher. And, and some of the villages up here and, and, uh, nearby and he, um, he got to know a, a homesteader that lived here on the jack and, and um, in the location where the lodge is here and, and um he stopped by and see him driving up the river and a boat going fishing or whatever. And, and, you know, told the guy, hey, if you ever want to, if you ever get to a point where you’re going to leave, you know, I’d like to buy your property and, and so, um, it ended up, you know, the guy had lived here a long time. And, you know, he’s just, he’s gotten to an age where he was struggling to, um, you know, to live out here, right? It’s not an easy life. And, and, um, And he, you know, he offered it to Jack, and Jack bought it. And, you know, it was um I think it was pretty rustic for, for quite a while, you know, and most of the fishing was all done on the river here, you know, you’d take out, you’d go out each day in a boat and, you know, catch some of everything, you know, whatever salmon were around, you’d catch trout, whatever. And then sometime in the after a few years of running it that way, you know, Jack realized the need for an airplane. And so he started flying. He got a started flying float planes and, and started, you know, taking people out to some of the other places to fish. And, you know, throughout the eighties, it, it got bigger. He started, you know, taking more people. He had more airplanes, more pilots, more, you know, more anglers. And, and, um, I’d say probably by the mid nineties. You know, they were flying out pretty much all the time. You know, fishing for everything trout, salmon, whatever. 00:18:45 Dave: Right, right. Hitting it perfect. Yeah. 00:18:48 Caleb: Yeah, exactly. And then and then so he Jack ran it until two thousand and seven and he sold it to his son John. And John ran it until until we bought it last year. So, you know, John expanded it a little bit. Jack. Um, when John bought it, he, he bumped it up to twelve guests a week and we went to from two beavers and a two hundred and six, a Cessna two hundred six, which is a little smaller up to running three beavers. So that we had room for seats for every angler that was here during the week without having to do any double trips each day or anything like that. So, you know, twelve is a pretty good number with um, the layout of the airplanes and the size of the lodge. And, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a pretty nice size for, you know, being able to get people into good fishing every day of the week, you know, and not necessarily have to fish the same rivers over and over, you know, each day. 00:19:46 Dave: So yeah, and it probably gives you a chance that if rivers are conditions change, you can go to a place that, you know, if something’s blown out, right? You can go to a place. Exactly. 00:19:56 Caleb: Yeah, yeah. There’s, there’s a lot of days where, you know, we have a destination in mind when we leave the lodge and, you know, we get up there and the weather’s bad, or maybe we fish it for a couple hours and it’s just not really happening. And we hop in the airplane and go somewhere else. And a lot of people don’t have that ability, that opportunity. You know, if you’re getting dropped on a river somewhere and the plane leaves and it’s coming back to pick you up, at the end of the day, you’re going to be there no matter what. So, um, it definitely gives us a little more flexibility and, and, um, and lets us sort of, you know, make the best out of a day versus just being stuck on a river. So if it’s not happening. So. 00:20:36 Dave: Right. And the jack is that’s one river there, are there other named rivers that people would know of or that are, you know, what are the other places? Are these lots just unnamed kind of places around? 00:20:47 Caleb: Yeah. So, you know, a lot of them, I’d say at this point, a lot of the places are fairly, you know, recognizable by by name for a lot of people. I mean, I can give you a list of some that would be probably the most likely to have been, you know, that people would have heard of that would be. So the jack, the Naknek. Yeah. Um, Brooks River, which is where the falls are, right? With the bears. You see the bears? Yep. 00:21:14 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:21:15 Caleb: Let’s see, American Creek. Yep. Moraine Creek. Wow. You know, I’d say probably those are the most the most recognized, right? 00:21:24 Dave: Yeah. Jack NAC, NAC and Brooks. I mean, I think those are three of the, you know, biggest names, right? I mean, because all those are known for known for a couple of things. They’re known for big rainbows, right? And, and also the bears, right? That that’s so, so, so people get an opportunity to actually see the bears and see that stuff. 00:21:41 Caleb: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. From about the, you know, middle of July through the end of the season, you know, on a lot of these rivers, you’re, you know, you’re near bears all day. 00:21:53 Dave: Oh that’s cool. Yeah, it’s really awesome. Yeah. I love the bears. So yeah, I’m always thinking like building out a trip. You know, if it was me, I’m thinking like, okay, this is I mean, it sounds like there’s you can’t go wrong. But I can imagine going there later in the season. So you could maybe get the Brooks, get some bears in, but then also, you know, hit the big rainbows because the rainbows are also beefing up too, right? They’re going to be bigger in the fall. 00:22:15 Caleb: Yeah. They get heavier, you know, once they start eating eggs for sure. We’ve had, you know, for the past, I don’t know, five or six years now, we’ve had really big sockeye runs, which means a lot of food for the trout. Right. And the fish have been. I would say even in the springtime, you know, June, early July, the fish have been heavier and thicker that time of year than previous years, you know, and I think it’s related to, you know, just the number of smolt and fry and, and everything that’s still available to them, you know, throughout the year rather than just the eggs. So we’ve seen a lot of really healthy fish, even early season for a number of years now, you know. 00:22:58 Dave: That’s right. Yeah. The sockeye has been huge. We heard we talked to a biologist that was that’s up there and he was talking about that, that they’re I don’t know, the numbers like one hundred, one hundred million or some giant number of. They’ve just had huge returns. And that’s he was talking about how the numbers were back, you know, back in the day, they were pretty low. They went down for sockeye. But they’ve really come back big time. Yeah. In Bristol Bay. 00:23:20 Caleb: I mean they they were having I mean I think, you know, pretty much record returns a few years in a row up until last year maybe. And and then even the last couple of years, the numbers have been pretty good. So, um, higher than they used to be there for a while. Yeah. 00:23:36 Dave: That’s sweet. What is the, you know, another species that we were fishing at another location for and actually are kind of spread around in other areas or Northern Pike, you know, is that, is that something that people are coming up there to find? Do you have an opportunity to if they wanted to diversify? 00:23:50 Caleb: You know, we don’t we don’t do a ton of it. You know, there’s pike around. There’s some places that we fish on occasion where you have an opportunity for some decent sized pike, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the even smaller but deeper ponds that you fly over every day if they’re deep enough for, for fish to survive the winter, you know, under the ice, then there’s, there’s pike in them. But a lot of those are, you know, kind of smaller up to say twenty four, twenty six inches. But it’s just it’s not a huge part of our program. There’s a couple spots where we’ll, you know, we’ll stop for a couple hours here and there, you know, and catch a couple or whatever. 00:24:31 Dave: Just to get get the yeah. If somebody wants to get have never has never touched one. Maybe just right. Yeah. 00:24:36 Caleb: Yeah, exactly. So, um, you know, a lot of that, I think a lot of the really big pike are farther north. Right. 00:24:43 Dave: Oh right. Yeah. That’s right. You guys aren’t quite what? You’re not way up there. That’s right. Right. Exactly. Well, and it sounds like you’ve got enough species to keep you going in in a week. Right. Well yeah. And the other one is the Arctic char, which. Yeah. You know, of course you see photos of Arctic char in there. I mean, I’m looking at one from your lodge right now. I’m not sure who this is, but. Right. It’s a person holding this amazing bright red. Talk about that. I mean, I feel like Arctic char are pretty, uh, at a similar, you know, probably not as easy to catch, right? I mean, there’s only a few places, you know, they’re not as you’re talking about rainbows, you can find those anywhere in the world, but Arctic char, there’s a location. What is what does that look like? Is the timing different for those fish? 00:25:20 Caleb: Yeah. So most of the, you know, the fish that you see when they’re really the bellies are really orange or red or. um, that’s a full time deal. Um, they color up throughout the summer, but a couple of rivers we fished there available, you know, throughout the season, there’s a few smaller creeks and things where the, the timing is fairly short, you know, maybe for a few weeks, it can be really good fishing for char. You know, they move in to eat salmon eggs. And then once those salmon are gone, they drop back out. But yeah, there’s most of the season, there’s an opportunity to have some pretty decent char fishing for sure. 00:25:58 Dave: How do you what is the char fishing like? Are you similar to how you’d be fishing for rainbows? 00:26:03 Caleb: Yeah. Pretty similar. You know streamers you can catch them on, you know, beadhead, nymphs, tails, copper johns, things like that, you know, and then also when the salmon are around eggs, right? They’re eating eggs. 00:26:16 Dave: So let’s say we were swinging flies for in the fall, you know, for whatever is it, are you just swinging out there? And you and you might catch a big rainbow, or you might catch a Arctic char. Can you focus on specific areas where you can maybe swing one up? 00:26:30 Caleb: Yeah. So I’d say, you know, most of the rivers where you’d be swinging flies in the fall time, you know, it’s mostly rainbows even late into the fall, some of the rivers, there’s still salmon spawning, right? So some of those rivers where we catch big char in the fall time, that’s still mostly an egg deal. Um, you know, you can it seems like the char like streamers more before the eggs are there, you know, in the spring, June, July. Once there’s eggs in the water, that’s what they want. They really want to eat eggs. You know, you can still, like I say, sort of like the trout. You can pick up a couple, but you know, it’s along the same lines of, you know, fishing a dry fly when there’s no hatch. Just because you like fishing a dry fly, right? You’re gonna pick up a couple fish. 00:27:17 Dave: But it’s not going to be the most effective. 00:27:18 Caleb: Right. Exactly. 00:27:20 Dave: So Arctic char. Um, yeah. I mean, it’s such a unique. You see the difference. But there’s still I mean, they start getting color. I mean, when do they start coming in? So they come in like in June and mid-June. They’re, they’re in they’re, they’re, they’re out there. 00:27:31 Caleb: Yeah. A couple the rivers we fished, they’re there all season. The other rivers, you know, maybe like early July, um, early to mid July, you know, in some of these smaller creeks, they show up and they’ll be there for, you know, a few weeks. And then once the salmon start to die off and there’s no eggs left, those chard drop back out either into a lake or into a larger river that those creeks run into. Right. And then in the fall, there’s a some spots we go to where there’s some bigger char that don’t move in until like in September out of big lakes and things like that, right? Because there’s, you know, there’s no salmon spawning until mid to late September, mid September in some of those places. 00:28:18 Dave: Right, right. Yeah. That’s right. Some of the places aren’t getting the or they don’t have all those early species, which are what the Chinook chum. 00:28:26 Caleb: Right. 00:28:26 Dave: Exactly. The early ones. Yeah. 00:28:28 Caleb: Yeah. So, you know, and I mean all these salmon spawn at different times and even different times in different places, right. So, you know, there’s some places where there will see sockeyes, you know, spawning as early as late July. And then there’s some places where there’s Sockeyes still spawning through probably October, right? 00:28:50 Dave: So. Wow. 00:28:51 Caleb: It’s a pretty wide range timing wise. 00:28:54 Dave: It is. Right. Wow. And what is the is the on the char. Do they size wise. Are they typically about the same size as rainbows or do they get bigger or smaller? 00:29:03 Caleb: Yeah pretty similar. Some of the smaller creeks, you know, up to you know, most of them are like same eighteen to twenty four. And then some of the, some of the other spots, you know, we get some pretty big fish into the thirties or even mid thirties at times. 00:29:20 Dave: No kidding. Mid thirties. They get up to mid thirties. 00:29:23 Caleb: Yeah. We’ve caught some char into the mid thirties. 00:29:26 Dave: Yeah that’s really cool. Yeah. Char char is just a you know very similar for those that haven’t you know very similar to trout. But there’s they’re they’re different in a lot of ways. I mean how, how are they different? How would you say char is different from, you know, are they more similar to, say, rainbow trout. 00:29:42 Caleb: Yeah. You know, I they’re definitely different. They fight hard. They pull hard. You know, maybe they’re not quite as, um. 00:29:51 Dave: Athletic right as. 00:29:53 Caleb: The rainbows are, but you know, they don’t jump much. Right. A lot more head shaking and that’s right. 00:29:59 Dave: Bulldogging you. 00:30:00 Caleb: Yeah, exactly. But they’re, you know, they’re really fun to catch and they’re. 00:30:05 Dave: Yeah. 00:30:05 Caleb: They’re really pretty fish sometimes they’re a little, um, maybe a little more user friendly. I’ll put it that way. 00:30:12 Dave: Yeah. Right. Right. They’re easier to catch sometimes. 00:30:15 Caleb: Yeah exactly. They can be, you know, and so in places where, you know, and some of these smaller creeks, especially like in July and August when it’s going, it’s, you know, you can catch a lot of them in a day. 00:30:27 Dave: You can. Oh, so, so it’s catching a, I mean, yeah, rainbows there. Once they’re on, they’re kind of on it sounds like. 00:30:34 Caleb: Yeah. When they’re in the river and they’re eating eggs, they’re, they’re really you can really catch some fish that way. So. 00:30:41 Dave: What about the, um, back to the rainbows. Do you know a little bit on the kind of the life history or what the fish are doing in the river. Are they, are they going up migrating between a lake and or is there a mix of things? 00:30:54 Caleb: Yeah. So, you know, a lot of these, a lot of the rivers, we fish the creeks a little different. But, you know, most of the rivers we fish are part of these big, you know, uh, lake and feeder creek systems. Right. So the sockeyes just specifically move up through the main rivers, which the Kodiak would be sort of the main river, right? They move into the lake, which for the jack that would be Lake Iliamna, and then into the feeder creeks of Iliamna. And they spawn in those feeder creeks for the most part. And then, you know, all the the fry drop out in the spring. They spend the winter in the lake, and then they migrate out the following year through the main river. But the, the jack’s a little different because the sockeyes spawn in the main river. You know, they never go into a lake, but there’s a lot of backwaters and things where, where the, the fry can survive long enough to get to the size of Smolt and then migrate out. Right. So they don’t necessarily need that lake because of the nature of the river. 00:32:03 Dave: Oh I see. Gotcha. 00:32:05 Caleb: But you know, and the jack in the fall, um, you know, there’s also chum spawning up there. There’s pinks, there’s a few kings, there’s silvers later on, you know, so it’s not just sockeyes, but the, the trout and the jack are a little different than some places. They spawn in the, in the jack in the spring, you know, may, um, even early June. And then they’ll hang out for a bit and eat, you know, salmon fry or smolt moving around. And then they go back into Lake Iliamna and they’ll spend most of the summer in the lake until the salmon move through and start spawning and all these other feeder creeks, but also in the jack itself. Somehow the, the trout know and who knows. But as soon as there’s salmon spawning in the jack, there’s rainbows there again. And somehow they know, you know, to come back down out of that lake when the salmon are spawning. It’s a. I’m not sure you know how they how they know, but they certainly do. So, you know, you can understand how they would know in a place where the salmon are spawning upstream of them, right? But when they’re in a lake that’s upstream of the river, and still they know that those salmon are in there, it’s pretty amazing. 00:33:26 Dave: That is pretty amazing. So. So they’re basically so they’re spawning in the river. 00:33:31 Caleb: They do in the springtime, you know, and they also spawn in some of the feeder in some of the smaller streams that run into Iliamna. 00:33:37 Dave: Oh yeah. Right. So they’re spawning in all these areas. And then for the most part, a lot of them are migrating upstream or downstream into Lake Ileum and they’re growing there. 00:33:47 Caleb: Right. And that’s kind of the case for a lot of the rivers here. You know, the fish, um, they’ll be in the in these smaller rivers, you know, that feed the lakes. They’ll be there in the spring, I think, you know, they’re in there and spawning and then they hang out and eat all the salmon fry coming down June, you know, through June. And then a lot of the places, the river’s actually the trout actually drop back out into the lakes and they don’t come back until until, you know, mid-July. Once the salmon start moving up. 00:34:21 Dave: Right. That’s the key. 00:34:22 Caleb: You know, it’s they’re all a little different, though. Some of the rivers we fish have, you know, a lot of insect life. And those those rivers will have fish in them throughout the season. You know, it’s just some of the other rivers are you know, they don’t have a lot of bugs. And once the salmon fry move through those fish want to get back to the lake so they can eat and then they’ll come back once the salmon start moving in again in mid-summer. 00:34:48 Dave: That’s sweet. 00:34:49 Caleb: So it’s really river dependent. 00:34:51 Dave: Yeah, it’s pretty diverse. That’s what’s cool about having the fly out, right? Because you can go to all these different and you can experience different things, whether that’s dry flies or it sounds like. Is there a time, you know, where you can. Sounds like the fall is a good time to get a diversity of types of techniques and stuff like that, but there’s never a one time, right? Because the salmon are always vary and um, yeah. And rainbows are there all year round right all summer there, there. Yeah. 00:35:14 Caleb: We fished for trout all summer long. Um I’d say, you know, late June, early July is probably the most you’d probably see the most variety of techniques. You know, you might start the day swinging a sculpin or stripping a sculpin fly and then, you know, switch to nymphs under an indicator and then maybe switch to, you know, dries in the afternoon, maybe, you know, skate a mouse somewhere in there. You might catch fish on all those things in one day as you get into, you know, early August, it becomes a lot more one dimensional as far as the fishing goes. And then as we get other than the fact other than, you know, there’s, there’s opportunities to catch silvers or chums or pinks depending on the year. And so you get a little bit of variety there. But the trout fishing is fairly one dimensional through August, mostly egg patterns. And then as you get into September, you know, second week of September, you can start catching fish again with, you know, big flies, big streamers and things, big bunny leeches and flesh flies and that sort of thing. So, you know, I’d say the most variety is definitely early season, you know, but then that, you know, the opportunity is, is there throughout the year to do some different things for different fish. Right? 00:36:37 Dave: So nice. And so yeah, so it’s pretty diverse. The, we talked a little bit about the species. And the thing we haven’t talked a ton about is the salmon, right? If people wanted to get into salmon, they could have that as well. And yeah, maybe mix it up a little bit. 00:36:50 Caleb: Yeah, yeah. We do some, you know, we do some salmon fishing, very minimal king fishing. The returns for quite a few years now have been pretty poor, pretty low. And, um, and we just kind of stopped targeting them. We stopped probably We haven’t done much fishing for probably five six years now. But then, you know, all the other salmon you have an opportunity for depending on, you know, when when you’re here. So. 00:37:22 Dave: So and yeah, I wanted to hear a little bit about, you know, maybe the program, what you do talk about that. Is this a typical everybody arrives on the same day, leaves on the same day. When are people and where would they fly into to get out there? How does that look? 00:37:35 Caleb: Yeah. So we pretty much run a seven day, seven night, six days of fishing program this year in June. And I think we’re going to do it again next year. We ran, um, five night, four days of fishing just to kind of break it up a little offer, you know, a little shorter trip for people and boat from. So basically June of next year, we’re also going to do those four day packages, four days of fishing, five nights and then starting in July, we go to week, you know, a full week. So on the full week packages, we run Monday to Monday. If you fly in into King Salmon Alaska on, on Monday on a chartered flight from Anchorage, that’s all included. And then we pick you up in King salmon and float planes and bring you out to the lodge, have dinner, fish, six days. And then we fly back in float planes to King Salmon the following Monday. And you take a charter back to Anchorage. And then. So same thing with the other, the other shorter trips, but obviously the date, the end date and beginning day of each trip changes, right? Because they’re not week long, but. 00:38:57 Dave: A little shorter. 00:38:58 Caleb: Yeah. So. 00:38:59 Dave: But pretty straightforward. 00:39:00 Caleb: Pretty straightforward. 00:39:01 Dave: Yeah. What is it about the no see, because, you know, obviously these trips up to, you know, some of the lodges and your lodge. You know it’s not. It’s not cheap, right? To get up here. What is it? Describe what the experience is like for somebody that hasn’t been there. And and kind of the value that people get. Obviously, you’re fishing in a place that, you know, you can’t really get to. Right. Nobody’s driving up here. That’s, that’s the first thing. Yeah. You got all that. But but what is it when you’re experiencing, how do you describe what you guys do to somebody who’s kind of maybe new to this? 00:39:31 Caleb: You know, to me, one of the neatest things is, um, you know, that you see a lot of different places throughout the week, right? You know, these rivers are all very different. The landscape around them is very different. Um, even the fish look different in different places. You know, you fly to these different rivers and I mean, you’re flying over basically wilderness, right? 00:39:54 Dave: Right. 00:39:54 Caleb: And you know, that’s not something you see on a lot of other fishing trips. You know, if you go trout fishing in Montana for a week, you know, you’re not flying over all of it to get to the you know, you’re put in on the Madison or whatever, right? 00:40:09 Dave: So no, you’re going to see other. Yeah. You’re gonna see other cars and there’s gonna be car. And so you’re flying above a wilderness area, which is what is that area? Is there a, is that area called. So I mean, you said one hundred miles of kind of the radius. 00:40:22 Caleb: Yeah. So a lot of the rivers we fish are in Katmai National Park. 00:40:27 Dave: Oh, Katmai right. You’re in the national park. Sure. 00:40:29 Caleb: Some of the places we go are part of, um, uh, wildlife Refuge to the south. Besharov. Um, we also have a permit to fish, uh, wood tick chick, which is to the north and west. And then some of the other places are, you know, state land in Alaska, right? So. 00:40:49 Dave: Right. It’s all huge and. All right. That’s right. I mean, just looking at where you’re at, you know, if you look at a map of Alaska, you’ve got the key, Jack, where your lodge is, then it flows out into the the bay there and Katmai is there. But if you fall down that chain, I guess that’s the Alaska Peninsula, right? That goes out. Right. So you got this peninsula, which is really amazing when you look at it on the map, because Google shows this shelf that you’re on and it drops off into the at the Gulf of Alaska, right into the abyss. 00:41:18 Caleb: It’s pretty amazing how far. I mean. 00:41:21 Dave: Yeah. 00:41:21 Caleb: You know, we, we barely make it down onto the peninsula, right? I mean. 00:41:25 Dave: Yeah, you’re, you’re up at the top. Right? 00:41:27 Caleb: Right. So even as far south as we fish, you know, it’s still what feels like forever to get to the end of it. You know, it’s amazing. The expansiveness is pretty amazing. 00:41:38 Dave: It is. 00:41:39 Caleb: It’s huge. 00:41:40 Dave: It’s huge. And that’s what the map doesn’t really do it justice. But you just look at the Aleutian chain and it follows that kind of peninsula all the way over to the other side of the world, right over to Russia, essentially. 00:41:52 Caleb: Exactly. 00:41:52 Dave: Yeah. You got this. And then you got the Bering Sea, which just starts in that area. You’re not really. Yeah. You’re not really in the Bering Sea, right. You’re in the, um, what’s the area called I guess? 00:42:01 Caleb: Yeah. Bristol Bay. 00:42:02 Dave: Just Bristol Bay. Yeah. Bristol Bay. But out there further is the Bering Sea, right? And just yeah. So man, it’s it’s pretty amazing to look and to think that you bring it back to where you are on this, on this river, right? Which it puts it in perspective. Do you ever feel like that, like you feel a little kind of small out there? When you look around, you’re like, man, we are, we are sure. 00:42:22 Caleb: For sure. You know, you get I mean, sometimes, you know, you get dropped on a river or you’re hiking into a place where there’s no one anywhere. Right? And you, you know, you feel like, wow, I mean, pretty small, right? 00:42:36 Dave: Pretty cool. Have you guys ever had I mean, probably I know the bears and bugs are two things that always come up. Like, you know, people are worried about the bears and the bugs, but, you know, that’s usually not too much of a deal, right? Are there have there been anything, you know, any, anything that’s happened to you guys? I mean, I’m sure you have lots of bear encounters. You’re going into the Brooks area and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. What does that look like? Is this something people need to be worried about or what are your what’s your take there? 00:43:02 Caleb: I don’t think it’s something to necessarily worry about. You know, these bears are they have zero interest in us as a you know, as a food item. Right. Exactly. So, you know, we’ve never had any like close calls where, you know, whoa, that guy almost got grabbed by a bear, you know? 00:43:22 Dave: Right. That’s never happened. Yeah. 00:43:25 Caleb: You know, we’ve had obviously instances where somebody maybe got charged by a bear, right. Or but that’s usually, you know, you surprise one or, or something, right. Or, or one’s just trying to see where, where he stands and, you know, in the hierarchy of things, right? 00:43:41 Dave: Definitely. 00:43:42 Caleb: But I mean, I’ve never, I’ve never felt like, well, that bears about to eat me, you know, I mean, never that thought never really crossed my mind. No. 00:43:52 Dave: Um, no, that’s not, you. 00:43:54 Caleb: Know, it’s just not as far as I know. You know, no fishermen in this part of Alaska has been eaten by a brown bear. And people have been sport fishing here for seventy plus years, right? 00:44:05 Dave: So that’s right. 00:44:06 Caleb: You know, you hear about it other places. You hear about people getting mauled by bears on the Kenai, right? 00:44:11 Dave: Or even in the lower forty eight and the lower forty eight National Park, right? Yeah. 00:44:15 Caleb: But I think these bears are are pretty different. You know, they’ve got millions of pounds of salmon, you know, in front of them. And, and it’s just not. 00:44:25 Dave: Not worth it. It’s not. 00:44:26 Caleb: Worth it. Yeah. 00:44:27 Dave: They’re smart enough to know that humans mean are are not right. Yeah. They know what’s going on. 00:44:32 Caleb: Yeah. I mean, if I felt like there was a greater than one or two percent, maybe even less, right. If I, if I really thought there was much of a chance that I was going to get eaten by a brown bear, I probably would have, you know, had second thoughts about doing this a long time ago, right? 00:44:47 Dave: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. The cool thing about it is, is that I think, and probably a lot of people do, is that you get to see the bears, you know, you actually go to these places and see them catching salmon right on the falls. What’s that like? Describe that for somebody who hasn’t seen it before. What’s that area called? The Brooks. What’s that area called? 00:45:04 Caleb: Yeah. So Brooks is kind of the famous one, you know, um, you see, I mean, now they have, you know, like a live stream, right? Constantly of the bears on the falls, right. But there’s a, you know, a lot of other places where you see a lot of bears and, you know, it’s, they’re neat to watch. I mean, they’re, they all, all of them kind of have unique styles and personalities. And, you know, just like people, I mean, some of them obviously are, you know, really good at fishing. Some of them you can watch them and they struggle, you know. Yeah. So but yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, there’s nowhere else that you’re going to stand around watching bears, you know, no, while you’re fishing. 00:45:45 Dave: Fishing, and you can actually do that. So our guys, so while the bears you’re fishing and they’re, they’re kind of off, you know, you can see them while you’re fishing. 00:45:52 Caleb: Oh yeah. Definitely. Yep. You know, and I mean, generally, you know, when they get close, right, You get, you stop fishing. You don’t want to catch a fish right in front of them. 00:46:01 Dave: Oh, right. Yeah. You don’t want to do that. 00:46:03 Caleb: But um but yeah, I mean there’s, there’s bears within, you know, sight most days, you know, at least for the last from mid-July on everywhere, not just Brooks, I mean. 00:46:17 Dave: Right. 00:46:17 Caleb: Most of the smaller rivers that we fish, there’s. 00:46:20 Dave: There’s bears. 00:46:21 Caleb: Yeah, exactly. Large numbers of bears. And you know, some days you see two or three, some days you might see thirty, right. Just kind of varies. 00:46:28 Dave: So wow. Yeah, that’s really cool. Well, this has been good. Caleb. Let’s take it out of here. Uh, we’ve been doing our little rapid fire round for you, and let’s do that today and we’ll take it out and then we’ll get ready to talk about the next one here. But, um, you know, as we get into this, I was thinking about swinging. You know, obviously there’s lots of ways to do it, but if you if let’s just start there with a tip for swinging flies, if somebody is kind of going to be wanting to go on this and they’re thinking, yeah, I can maybe bring the spey rod and swing some flies. What’s your best advice to that person? 00:47:02 Caleb: That’s a good one. You put me on the spot. 00:47:03 Dave: Yeah yeah yeah. No, that’s what we. Yeah. I mean, I think the question, you know, I think like I’m picturing myself with some sort of a, a sinking line, right. And we’re getting down like you talked about the fall versus the spring. Let’s just take it to the June time because I think that’s the time that, you know, might be cool to go into. But let’s say you’re June, it sounds like you’re going to be a little bit lighter, maybe a little bit shorter rod. Is it just a, that person sitting there in the run? Is this going to be pretty easy, or are they going to have to work a little bit to hook into a rainbow on the swing? 00:47:34 Caleb: Yeah, I’d say it’s, you know, pretty easy. You know, especially early in the season. The fish haven’t they haven’t seen flies for eight months or whatever. 00:47:44 Dave: And it’s not hard to find the fish. What if there was a is there a chance to you hook some fish but you’re trying to find bigger fish. Like, is there a chance to read the water and find maybe some of those bigger. Or are you just have to basically catch. Just keep catching fish until you get something that’s, you know, a bigger size. Like we’re saying, trying to get maybe something in the mid twenties or something. 00:48:02 Caleb: Yeah. You know, a lot of the time it’s just keep, keep fishing. Right. Um, I think, I mean, I fish for winter, winter steelhead a lot and sort of the same idea, right? The more time your flies in the water, the better your chances. Right. So, um, but yeah, I think, you know, there are times where you can really see the fish, right? So you can target specific fish, but the more times you, you know, make good casts that turn over that you can control what they do after they hit the water, the better your odds are right of, of finding fish and finding bigger fish, right? 00:48:37 Dave: So controlling. So you say, let’s say you’re fishing in June with that little streamer or smaller streamer, you’re actually doing some stuff to fish that fly still to get. 00:48:46 Caleb: Right. Exactly. Yeah. You know, you want your, you want your cast to go out and land fairly straight right now. You don’t want a bunch of slack in there when they land. Um, you know, there’s times where you really got to sync the fly. Um, maybe you, you know, you get it to land, put a nice mend in or, you know, even give it, give it some extra line to give it a chance to get down before it fishes through the zone that the fish are in, you know. And, but having cast that turnover and land straight and, you know, generally in the area where you wanted them to land makes a big difference in success rate, you know? 00:49:23 Dave: Yeah. So you want it to be so you want to, you don’t want like a kind of a sloppy cast and a big man. You want to be fishing, right? As soon as it hits the water. 00:49:31 Caleb: Right. Yeah. There’s a lot of times where you want that fly to land and maybe you sink it, but you you want it to land. You know how it’s going to fish through that spot rather than landing out there in a big pile and then hoping for the best. Right? So. 00:49:45 Dave: Right. Yep. So even though it’s Alaska, you still want to be able to make a nice cast and fish it, fish it like you want to fish it. 00:49:51 Caleb: It’s definitely helpful. I mean, that, you know, definitely, um, it’s a pretty friendly place as far as the fishing goes for people that maybe aren’t super experienced. You know, you can come here with having not ever fly fish before and have some pretty good days of fishing, right? But for somebody who is more experienced, you can have some really good days of fishing, right? 00:50:14 Dave: That’s right. So so you get a mix of that. So do you guys get some people that are new? Do you also mix up like as far as the techniques we’ve been obviously talking about fly, but are, are people also come up their fishing gear and stuff like that or. Uh, no. 00:50:27 Caleb: We don’t, we don’t really do any kind of hardware. It’s all fly fishing. You know, some of the rivers we fish in the park are fly fishing. Only some of the cool. But yeah, it’s just how we, how we do things. Right? 00:50:39 Dave: Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. 00:50:41 Caleb: So but yeah, we’ve have, I mean, we’ve had people that have never picked up any kind of fishing rod, much less a fly rod. Right. Come here and then I had great experiences fishing, caught a lot of fish. And then we’ve had, you know, lots of people who fish, you know, probably one hundred days, one hundred days a year. Right? I mean. 00:51:03 Dave: And they’re coming up. 00:51:04 Caleb: Yeah. So, and, and the opportunities are there for pretty much any skill level, you know. 00:51:09 Dave: Pretty much you got it all covered. What is the and are you out there guiding, uh, throughout the season? 00:51:15 Caleb: I do yep. I guide pretty much every day. Um, throughout the season. Yeah. I think it’s pretty important. I mean, you know, it’d be, it’d be a lot harder to do this without being on the rivers, taking people fishing and seeing what’s happening. Right. And knowing. Yeah. 00:51:33 Dave: Um, knowing exactly. 00:51:34 Caleb: You know, I mean, we obviously our guides, you know, our other guides are, you know, they’re on the river every day and we get all that feedback from them. But it also helps to see it personally. Right? 00:51:46 Dave: So yeah. 00:51:47 Caleb: And know what’s going on at different places and, and, and, you know, I really enjoy it. So. 00:51:53 Dave: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You want to do the stuff you enjoy. That’s exactly, that’s why you’re lucky, you know, you’re in that position to do that. But yeah, and we’ll talk more about this. I think today we’ve kept this high level, which has been fun, you know, and I think as we go, we’ll probably dig in more to details of the specifics and tips and techniques and stuff like that, right. Because there’s a lot we can dive into. And, and I think like we said, you know, swinging flies is just one thing that people can do. But there’s like, you know, you mentioned that one thing, you know, swinging, stripping, uh, you know, flies nymphing dry mouse, right? And we haven’t even really gone deep into the mousing, which would be fun. Yeah. So that’s good. Well, I think, um, you know, I got one random one here, maybe one and a half here. I’ll give you this and then we’ll, we’ll take it out of here. So maybe just a fly is always a fun one, right? Like fly. What is the do you think is the, the number one fly that people or you know, is there one type? I mean, we talked about a bunch of different ones, but is there one named fly that you guys use all the time? 00:52:50 Caleb: Yeah. I think, um, you know, any kind of a rabbit strip leech, you know, I think, um, but, you know, for the, for quite a while, you know, Dalai Lamas, right. Two different colors of rabbit strip with the cone head and flash down the sides, those in different sizes and different colors work a lot of places throughout the year, you know. 00:53:11 Dave: Yeah. It’s a Dalai Lama. That’s a good one. And that one is just imitating the flesh. And it’s kind of got everything doesn’t it? Yeah. 00:53:18 Caleb: You can, you can tie it in, you know, as many different colors as your, you know, as you have the imagination for it. But, you know, black and white ones, black and green ones black and, you know, and then down to different flesh and all that, you know? Yeah, they all work. Yeah. It’s got a lot of a lot of wiggle and, and all that flash. And they think well, and the fish definitely like them. 00:53:41 Dave: So they get down. That’s awesome. I was just thinking of, uh, kind of we talked about bears and stuff like that, right? It sounds like you guys haven’t had too many issues up there, but what is the as you look ahead at your, you know, year because you guys are mid-August, right? So you’re going to go through August, September. Like when do you guys when’s the last group come through there? 00:54:02 Caleb: Uh, most years, right about the end of September this year. Uh, this year, our last group, uh, leaves on September twenty eighth. Some years we’ll stay open until the first week of October. That October fishing can be really good. There’s not as many different places to go usually, but the places that are still fishing are fishing really well and even same thing, sort of that last week, week and a half of September, you start to get a a little limited on destinations, but those places that are fishing well are. 00:54:35 Dave: Are on. 00:54:35 Caleb: Pretty ridiculous. Yeah, yeah. So but you know, you get into late September here is pretty close to winter. So. 00:54:43 Dave: Right. Yeah, you’re getting it turns quick and then yeah, once it turns, do you guys kind of lock things down, lock them up, and then you’re heading out back to back down south? 00:54:52 Caleb: We do. Yeah. So, you know, we closed the lodge and then, you know, winterized the place. Um, usually takes a few days and um, and then we all take off, fly the airplanes back to north of Anchorage. And then, you know, we all go our separate ways and meet back up in late May and do it again. 00:55:12 Dave: There you go. Pretty good year. 00:55:14 Caleb: Yeah. Pretty good year. 00:55:16 Dave: Are you out there. Are you flying. Are you have you done any of that or on the planes themselves? 00:55:21 Caleb: Uh, I started flying a few years ago. I’m not flying for the lodge yet. But. 00:55:26 Dave: But you can fly. 00:55:27 Caleb: But working on it. 00:55:28 Dave: Yeah, you can fly. Yeah. We were. I just was on my first float plane this year, and it was, uh, it was really cool experience. You know, the pilot, it’s just different, you know, because you got to get those pontoons up on plane, right? And the pilot was doing that thing. And I don’t know if everybody does it. But he was like shaking the wheel, you know, trying to basically right, doing the thing to get it up on plane and, and but yeah, it’s amazing. Like, I’m not even sure how fast those things go, but you’re, you’re cruising and then you land that just that experience, right? If you haven’t done that before is something unique. 00:56:00 Caleb: Yeah, it’s pretty neat. I mean, you know, landing on water if you haven’t done it is, is pretty cool. 00:56:05 Dave: So yeah, it’s pretty cool. Yeah. It’s and do you ever get, is it something you kind of get used to or I guess you probably like anything. Some of the stuff you do it so much, you almost take it for granted. But I’m sure you appreciate kind of what what you guys are doing there on a daily routine. 00:56:21 Caleb: Yeah, definitely. You definitely. You know, some of it becomes, you know, something you just do every day, right? And you don’t really see necessarily how unique it is. But, um, there’s, you know, times throughout every season where I’m like, wow, this is pretty cool. You know, we’re flying an airplane to go fish for rainbows. You know, it’s pretty neat. 00:56:43 Dave: Exactly. That’s pretty neat. Awesome. Caleb. Well, I think we could leave it there for today. And like we said, we’ll be following up with you on more stuff. Moving ahead, we will send everybody out to know CM Lodge dot com if they have questions or want to connect with you on information, questions on trips and things like that. But yeah, man, thanks for shedding light on this today. It’s been a lot of fun and we’ll catch you on the next one. 00:57:05 Caleb: Yeah. Thanks, Dave. Appreciate it. 00:57:09 Dave: If the key Jack swing game got your attention, or you’re interested in mousing or tying into some salmon or anything else, check in with no CM Lodge right now, that’s no CM Lodge dot com. You can also check in with me anytime and we’ll get more information. This is definitely a destination. Big rainbows is on the list. Swinging for big rainbows. I think we all could love some action like that. You can always send me an email Dave at web dot com if you’re interested in joining pro. We’ve got a big boot camp coming up here. That’s our best chance to get involved and experience it and get connected with the community. That’s what Fly Swing Pro. We’re excited to keep this going. Hope you’re having a good day. Appreciate you for stopping until the very end and want to just remind you one more takeaway. Caleb reminding us that Alaska isn’t one fishery that stays the same all summer. The salmon move, the rainbows move, the food changes, and your approach has to move with it. So just like any fishing, we’re going to be adjusting as we go. But we want we know one thing in Alaska, there’s big fish and there’s a lot of fish up there. So this is the chance for you to experience Alaska and some big rainbows. All right. I’m gonna get out of here. Hope you’re having a good afternoon, a good evening or morning, wherever you are on this planet. And I’ll talk to you and see you on the next episode. 00:58:24 Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly swing dot com.
Alaska trout fishing at No See Um Lodge is all about change. Salmon fly moves through small creeks; trout move between rivers and lakes; Arctic char enter smaller creeks; eggs become important in August, and big streamers return as fall approaches. Caleb’s biggest lesson is to pay attention to what the fishery is doing rather than expecting one technique to work well all season. With the fly-out program, anglers can adjust locations and presentations as the rivers, salmon, food sources, and fish change. If you could plan your own Alaska trout fishing trip at No See Um Lodge.
