You have been an active fisher your whole life. What first got you interested in fishing? When did you decide to pursue it as a career?
I began my fishing life as a child, at two years old, trout and panfish fishing from a tin boat on an Adirondack Mountain lake with my family. I caught my first trout barehanded. From the beginning it was clear that I had a deep connection to the fishing, the fish, and the vast, dark underworld of the waters. I was obsessed. I spent countless hours reading fishing magazines and dreaming of fishing. I would fish in the local ponds and streams, and in the lower Hudson river near home, every chance I got. By the time I was around ten years old I was "playing hooky" most days, fishing for largemouth bass instead of going to school. That caught up with me eventually, and I had to take fifth grade all over again, just because of bass fishing. As far as I was concerned, it was worth it. Those bass were magical. The only way I could get past the second year of fifth grade was to write an essay. I wrote about bass fishing. It won some kind of award at the time. Fishermen live with a lot of irony at times.
Later on, in my mid teens, I got involved in Thoroughbred racehorses and racetrack work, and that led me to travel all over the country so I was able to fish in many places, in freshwater and saltwater. Up until my twenties this was all bait and lure fishing; everything from local fishing with garden worms to deep wire trolling for sea bass far offshore. It helps to have friends with big boats. I hadn't really considered fly fishing at that point, and I was not about to release anything that I had caught. By the 1980's, most of the saltwater fishing on the New England coast was shut down due to a collapse of the fisheries. Everything from the inshore forage fish to the big Striped Bass and Bluefish, flounder, rock fish etc., were in dire trouble. Habitat loss and over fishing were the most immediate causes. This fishing ban lasted for years. It was devastating. Most of the greatest fish runs on earth have collapsed.
No one believes that they can lose it all, but it has happened many times. If you asked the leading marine scientists on the Pacific coast ten years ago, if it was possible that to lose nearly all of the coastal starfish species, from Alaska to Mexico, in just a few years time - that they would all melt away before our eyes - no one would have believed it. But there it is. That's exactly what happened. They still don't understand this. My point is that, this could happen to our fisheries as well.
What is your favorite style of fishing? Why?
I got back to my roots in fishing after the ocean fishing closed, and went up into the Catskill and Adirondack Mountain rivers, to trout fish with light spinning tackle. That was fun, but I kept running into these guys who were fly fishing; and some of them were really artists at it. They were catching some really nice fish with these tiny little flies tied to imitate insects, and they released the trout unharmed. That was kind of intriguing. I knew I could catch those fish with my gear, but I saw the fly fishing thing as a huge challenge. I wasn't so sure that I could do it. A friend helped me get into it. That was about 40 years ago. I have been fly fishing ever since.
After about 15 years of fly fishing with no real support or instructions, I was pretty good at doing most of it wrong. So I found a great instructor, Joan Wulff, and I started over with the fly casting. Joan Wulff had won national and international casting events against male competition in the 50's and 60's. She had set world records in casting. She is still considered one of the greatest fly fishers and fly casters that ever lived. There's over 1000 year history of women leading the way in fly fishing, so I had no hesitation in taking Joan's advice every chance I got. She really set me on the path to becoming a professional fly fisherman.
Now, I have been fly fishing for around the last 40 years. It's been a long learning curve. I was fortunate to have some great mentors. I still have a great deal of room for improvement, especially in my fly casting. Joan Wulff warned me that my own fishing life would suffer once I got into guiding. If you are guiding, you aren't fishing, so you get less practice. You really have to work at the skills to stay in the groove. Fly fishing is an art; and within the game there is fly tying, fly casting, reading the water, wading, and other related skills like wilderness travel. Plus there's the naturalist side of learning insects, aquatic entomology, studying other forage species, reading the weather, etc. It can become a very engrossing game.
You lead fly fishing trips on the Olympic Peninsula. When and how did you first get interested in leading fishing tours?
Around the same time I was beginning to guide other fly fishermen, in New York and New England, I discovered that helping my friends to make the right cast with the right fly, and to catch a fish, was more rewarding for me than actually catching the fish myself - mostly. This eventually led to some connections that got me up to southwest Alaska to guide fly fishing. I worked for several different operators up there. Most of my guiding work was on the Lake Iliamna tributaries and the Katmai National Park waters. We flew out to different rivers and lakes every day. We would row rafts or jet boat the rivers, fly fishing for rainbow trout, char, salmon etc. It was an overwhelming crash course in wilderness fishing. Every day was an adventure. I loved flying out in the DeHavilland Beaver float planes. We were surrounded by bears much of the time. In 2001 I was offered a deal to guide fly fishing on the Russian Kamchatka. That was an amazing season. We lived in a remote tent camp on a wilderness river. We flew everything in, including our guests, by helicopter. It was a huge logistics operation to get everything in and running. That region is breathtaking; vast mountain ranges and miles upon miles of river valleys. We were the only people who were sport fishing there, on over 68 miles of wild river. We had 100 fish days. Not a single hatchery fish. It's the best fishing I could dream of. It is a very hard place to live and work. The best worst job I ever had.
I have been guiding fly fishermen on the Olympic Peninsula waters since around 2002. I guide fly anglers for sea-run coastal cutthroat trout on the saltchuck. We walk and wade from the beaches, casting flies. It's a beautiful way to spend your day. I also use a vintage restored Swampscott Dory, to row trout anglers along the shores and beaches, casting for cutthroat. We do some fishing for trout and summer steelhead in the coastal rivers too, mostly in the fall.
When and how did you first hear about the North Olympic Salmon Coalition? In what ways have you been involved?
I got here in 2000, and had been studying the region for some time beforehand. I was really impressed with what they had done on Chimacum Creek in particular. Here you have a stream that had completely lost it's salmon run. For the first time in 15,000 years you had a generation of people growing up on the river with no salmon coming home. Just salmon stories. So the citizens got together and began to restore the stream habitat. They reared juvenile salmon into the watershed and worked their tails off for decades. And now, the salmon are coming home. Now there are projects all up and down the North Olympic coast. Some of these restoration streams barely have any water in them all summer, due to the seasonal droughts, but by spring there are upwards of a million salmon fry and smolt coming out of them. Some of those streams have become more productive than the big coastal rivers. That's quite an accomplishment. I love it that this was and is still done chiefly with volunteer effort, and a superb staff team. I had taken the Waterwatchers and Beachwatchers trainings through Washington State University, and that lead to volunteering in various filed tasks with NOSC for a few years. I have been actively sharing their information and links, etc., with other fishers and conservation groups, and I try to support the programs through membership, donations, activism, etc. I donate fly fishing trips and rowboat picnics to fundraisers when I can. I miss volunteering in the field, and I hope to get back to it. That's where all the heart is for me. This is one of the best things I have ever seen as far as wild fish restoration in action, getting results.
Why do you feel that boosting our runs of wild-born salmon is so important?
With hatcheries, you have to spend more and more money and energy for fewer returns. The cost of hatchery fish is a scandal. Hatchery production of salmon and other fish has caused most people to take wild fish for granted. Wild fish only need clean functioning habitats and a chance to spawn unmolested. The more wild fish that you allow to spawn, the more fish you will have. They closed the Skagit River about ten years ago to protect wild winter steelhead under the Endangered Species Act. Today there are something like five times as many wild steelhead spawning in the Skagit River system. There are countless examples of how well wild salmonids can recover if we just give them a chance.
What are you most excited for next in the wonderful world of fishing?
I will always be a fisherman. I have crossed a threshold in my fishing life, where the fish have become more important to me than the fishing. As a fishing guide, it is my job to help people catch fish, but I also feel that it is my job to educate people about conservation and the state of our wild fisheries today. I teach anglers to limit their catch, not catch their limit. And we only use catch & release techniques, barbless hooks, etc. I decided to stop fishing and guiding for our wild winter run steelhead here because their numbers are perilously low. I don't guide for wild salmon in the rivers either. We have to moderate our impacts. So now what really excites me is seeing people out there who appreciate what we have, they get involved in the restoration effort, and they tend to put less pressure on the fish. Some of them have become very supportive of NOSC. I help teach a program every year near Olympia where we run a week-long conservation education and fly fishing academy for kids. It is all volunteer run; no one gets paid. We have been doing this long enough that we now have these young adults, in their twenties, coming back to the camp tell us all about their careers in biology, aquatic sciences, environmental sciences, fisheries, etc. And all of them learned how to fly fish too. That is very gratifying. The big kick in fishing for me today is seeing people get turned on to restoration and recovery.
Anything else you want share with our readers?
We in the Pacific Northwest have inherited something like 10% or less, of the historic number of salmon, steelhead, cutthroat trout, etc., of the 1800's. It is our responsibility to mitigate the losses, improve the habitats, continue to improve water quality, and support restoration. Otherwise, there will be nothing left for the next generation. Wild fish and their habitats are the key. If you want a lot of fish, you need to let a lot of fish spawn.
Thank you, Bob, for the amazing life history!
