743 | Fly Fishing the Gaspé Peninsula with Andrew Murphy – Atlantic Salmon, Stripers, Sea-Run Brook Trout

Dave (2s): We’ve heard about the great fishing on the Gaspe Peninsula on this podcast, and from other guests that we’ve talked to over the years. The famous waters, active Atlantic salmon to the surface, and an amazing region. But we haven’t yet heard about some of the great flats fishing for stripers in this area. And today we’re going to cover both of these species and more. And by the end of this episode, you’ll be ready to plan your next Atlantic salmon and or striper adventure this year. 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. Hey, this is Dave host of the Wet Fly Swing podcast. Dave (44s): I’ve been fly fishing since I was a little kid, grew up around a little fly shop and created one of the largest fly fishing podcasts in this country. Andrew Murphy longtime guide and new lodge owner is gonna take us into his gas Bay Peninsula world. We talk about the diversity of their program and how you can catch salmon stripers, sea run brook trout all on the same trip. We’re gonna find out about wind fish, the double hook fly pattern, when that works best for salmon, his top three favorite patterns and the colors that the, the only colors you need today, and some common mistakes to avoid that, that he sees a lot of for Atlantic salmon. Also wanna remind you, we are heading to the Missouri River this year. Dave (1m 26s): If you’re interested in fishing the Great Missouri River, the Big Mo, you can join us right now. Go to wetly swing.com/missouri and sign up right now and we’ll follow up with you on availability. And this is gonna be an epic trip to one of the big rivers, a huge fish per mile numbers, big fish. On average, it’s gonna be an epic trip. So sign in now, find out what we have going and let’s jump into it. Here we go. We’re fired up for Atlantic Salmon this year. Are you with me? Here we go. Andrew Murphy from gas bay coastal.com. How you doing Andrew? Andrew (1m 59s): I’m doing great Dave. Yourself? Dave (2m 1s): Great. Yeah, I’m, I’m excited to talk about your, the area that you have, your lodge. We’re gonna talk a little bit about what you have going there. You’ve got a few, at least a few big species. There’s probably more on the list, but Atlantic salmon are a hot topic, you know, for us right now. And, and I know stripers are always big, you’ve got a unique fishery there, which includes I think some flat style fishing. So we’re gonna talk that and maybe even a little bit on the back country. But before we get into that, maybe just take us to where you’re at this time of year, what’s your week look like? Are you out there fishing? Are you more tying flies this time of year? Andrew (2m 34s): Man, I wish I was doing fishing or fly tying, but we are like really hands-on on this lodge operation, so we’re kind of doing some final touches. We’re doing a lot of paint work and stuff, just making sure we’re, we’re ready for next season. So it’s been a bit of a busier season than normally this time of year. The gas bay, certainly back country skiing, usually snowmobiling, definitely the fly tying season also. But yeah, this year’s just been a little bit different. We’ve been full throttle, you know, over at the lodge since last summer. So that’s been, that’s kind of been our life right now is, is just spending a lot of time over there and getting to put this place together has been just amazing. Dave (3m 11s): Yeah. And this is in the Gas Bay Peninsula. Maybe describe that a little bit to maybe folks that aren’t familiar with that exact area. It’s pretty close to the US right? Andrew (3m 21s): Correct. So we’re close. I mean the biggest town in the US that would be close to us would be Pres Kyle up in Maine. So we’re, we’re just above the main border. And then you go through the entirety of New Brunswick and then there was a bay across, and then that would be the Bay Peninsula. So it’s like eastern Canada and it’s this kind of like end of the chock mountain chain and it’s this really fun peninsula for the fishing. It’s just absolutely unbelievable. Pretty short to get around. I mean, it’s only about 80 miles across and something like 200 miles long. So you can kind of loop it pretty quickly and move around and just go see what you want to do depending on weather, on weather and water conditions. Dave (4m 3s): Right. And what are the, what are the main species that you guys are focusing on up there? Andrew (4m 8s): So the gas bay has historically been this hotbed for Atlantic salmon fishing. And we’re right in Casp Pia St. Jewel’s. So it’s like on the, we’re literally on the banks of the, of the Grand CASP pedia, which is probably the, one of the more famous ones of the area. So Atlantic salmon, huge focus, huge salmon fishing culture out here. You know, it’s, it’s very traditional. It’s been around for forever. But we also focus a lot on, on the stripers. That’s definitely something I do a little bit more of that. I kind of the only one of the few guys that that did it, certainly in my beginnings. So that’s something we really enjoy. And we’ve been kind of focusing again more on sea run brook trout, which not everybody does in this area. Andrew (4m 48s): They require a little bit more digging and you know, some longer hikes or some bigger canoe floats to get into the areas where they like to hang out. But that’s also just been super fun. A little bit more adventurous for, for us in the guide team. Dave (4m 60s): Gotcha. And are sea run brookies? What, what is the life history with the Brook try? ’cause you hear about some of these large brook trot up say in Labrador or something like that. Is that a similar life history or is this unique here with the, the anadromous form? Andrew (5m 14s): Yeah, so it’s a little bit different. I’m by no means like a brook trout biologist, but the long and short from what I gather from over the years is essentially the brook trouts will leave the, the salmon rivers, ’cause the rivers in in the gas bay tend to be like pretty sterile. You know, they’re kind of coming down from granite mountain faces, very clear water, not like huge amount of bug life, like definitely some, but it seems like that these brook trout have adapted to kind of leave the river systems in the early spring and then go and feed in the salt water where there’s a little bit more bait fish and more abundance of nutrients. But they can only tolerate it for so long. I think it’s a couple of weeks, like four to six weeks before their kidneys start having issues processing salt. Andrew (5m 58s): So then they return to the fresh water and they’ll spend basically late summer and, and the entirety of winter in fresh water. Dave (6m 9s): Wow, that’s interesting. Yeah, so they’re kind of, they’re okay at anatomy, right? It sounds like they can get out there a little bit, but they can. Yeah, Andrew (6m 16s): Yeah, pretty much. They can do a little bit. I know it’s a little bit similar with Arctic char and, and there’s a lot of sea run brook trout up in, in the great north, whereas the ones in, in Labrador are, are entirely freshwater species. Dave (6m 31s): Right? That’s right. Okay. And are they, as far as these, how big are these fish getting the, the ones that are out there for six or is it six months or six weeks? Andrew (6m 41s): It’s like about six weeks. That’s a short, yeah, six weeks Short. Short seed. Yeah, short feeding period for them out in the ocean. I mean, I’ve heard stories of, of rookies, you know, like in the, the eight, nine pound range. I’m always gonna be a little bit skeptical about those super high numbers. I used to, I worked when I was younger for, for several seasons in Labrador And we weighed like a lot of trout and it’s a nine pound trout. I mean it could be, but we get them in like the three and a half, four pound range kind of in that size range that we used to catch in Labrador. There’s not as many of them, you know, it’s not as prevalent of a fishery. We’ve been, I haven’t had the pleasure of fishing New Zealand, but I’ve heard it a lot like compared to New Zealand, ’cause it is clear water, it’s a little bit more like a stalking game. Andrew (7m 26s): They’ll hold in really, really skinny water. So you’re, you’re coming down with the boats really slowly getting out, kind of walking around the next bend, just really trying to spot these fish kind of sitting in, in these shallow runs. And then we can target them with like dry flies and, and lightweight streamers, interestingly enough. Like there is no, so these fish are like hanging out in the same rivers as Atlantic salmon do. So we have to abide by the salmon fishing rules, which say that, that you can’t use weighted flies, we can’t nymph them. Yeah. Which makes things like a little bit interesting and I mean, I’d much rather work them on a dry honestly than anything else. Dave (8m 4s): Right. So no nipping in, in the area. And then on the Atlantic salmon, what is, what does that look like? It sounds like that it’s kind of traditional style. What, what is that, are you guys using two handed rods, single handed rods? What, what does that look like there? Andrew (8m 19s): So we use a bit of everything. It’s gonna depend obviously on, on water flows and you know, how hard or how high the river’s pushing and then angular preferences. But normally, yeah, in June we’ll start with two handed rods and as we get into July, we’ll probably go back to either like short. I personally love to fish like a short switch rod, like an 1111 foot rod is something I’d like to swing at. But this area is also known for like the clear water and a lot of dry fly fishing in the summer months. So anything in July to August, early September, we’ll be throwing a lot of dries and we’d probably go to like a single hand rod. I like to carry a bit of everything, honestly. It’s i’ll, I’ll usually carry it a two hander and a single hand and just kind of adapt. Andrew (9m 2s): Yeah, it depends on, on again, the runs, the casting distance. I find that sometimes on spay rods, if the water’s low because the head is like heavy, it’ll slow down your presentation a little bit. So going to like lighter lines can, can help. So just we’re trying to keep an open mind and situational awareness on, on how the flows are doing. ’cause you know, Atlantic salmon is all about fly speed. Dave (9m 27s): So fly speed is number one and you want it kind of faster for the most part. Andrew (9m 32s): Yeah, I, you know, compared to a steelhead where I find, you know, you the, the low and slow just doesn’t seem to get them as excited. They like to chase targets that are moving pretty quick. I’m definitely in the will strip a fly every now and again just to give it, you know, nothing too crazy, but just to give it like that extra bump in speed, they’re very surface oriented, you know, they’ll come up like a lot of water man to, to smash something and they eat really small stuff. You’re always playing with that. You’re kind of trying to work your, your mending and your, your fly speed to just get it, get it just right, keep it in the zone, but also keep it moving a little bit, ideally faster than current I find is, is kind of a, where I like to fish it. Andrew (10m 16s): And of course, you know, there’s no, there’s no exact science on this. I’m, there’s people doing the exact opposite that are, you know, we probably do just as well or out fish me, it depends. But I’m, I’m definitely, I, I went from a steelhead background, so I came in here and I was like, yeah, low and slow and you know, the mend up and trying to keep the fly in in those runs, like moving through kind of almost dredging. And I started switching it up a couple years after that, spending some time with some legends around here and yeah, like just something a little bit faster, let ’em chase it, let ’em see it. That seems to wake ’em up more. Dave (10m 53s): Yeah, that’s right. So that’s cool. So speed is good. And, and then what about flies? So do you have a few or are there a bunch of flies that you guys use? What does that, or could you just come there with one fly and be good with it? Andrew (11m 5s): I know some guys that will tie like one fly, like especially in June, they’ll just fly, you know, they’ll fish one or two pattern and that’s it. Every area’s got their own, I guess fly culture. But out here, the, the PC stone, the pod Coggle stone fly the ghost Stonefly, which is just a variant of the, the PC PCAs is also like very well known in this area. They’ve all kinda, you know, emanated from this area, from fly tires or or guests visiting this area. So there are patterns we fish a lot more say compared to the green machine, which is like super popular down in, in New Brunswick. I don’t think we own a green machine. Dave (11m 44s): Oh, you don’t? Andrew (11m 46s): No, no. It’s just different, you know, and then we’ll fish more traditional patterns like the black bear green butt and stuff like that. And smaller sizes. There’s, yeah, there’s just a bunch of patterns that are, that are fun and maybe again, a little bit more unique of this area. One of the guides that works with us, Alex, he’s this incredible fly tire and he comes up with a bunch of patterns. Like he’s someone that really has that drive to, to sit at the vice and it’s kind of like his creative space. So I guess I’ve got like a bunch of stuff in my boxes that are just unnamed creations or yet to be named creations from, from what he’s tying. And that works well. Andrew (12m 26s): I’m not the guy that’s gonna change the most flies. I’m definitely also in that school of thought of maybe I, I’d rather cover a lot of different spots, like cover a lot of water in a day than focus on one pool where there’s, there’s many fish. So I don’t change it necessarily and I’m just kind of looking for that right fish, which is usually a pretty decent strategy, especially in early season as they get more finicky or if, you know, if they’ve been in the river system a little bit longer, their kind of drive goes down a little bit. And then yeah, maybe we’ll spend longer time on, on one area and just kind of trying different patterns, different styles. Andrew (13m 8s): Fly profile obviously is gonna, is gonna affect presentation, fly speed, and then size. Dave (13m 14s): What does that profile typically look like? Because you are these really small little thin flies or they, they have a little bit of bulk, Andrew (13m 23s): They can be kind of bulky. You know, we don’t have anything that really resembles like an intruder where you’re really trying to move displaced large amounts of water. But some flies, you know, like the, the PC stone, what’s interesting about is it, it it is tied with a parachute and it is fished as like a wet fly. So there’s gotta be something in that kind of cone structure on the head that’s just like displacing a little bit more water that gets their attention. You know, traditional salmon fly like the red Francis is basically like a carrot, like it’s an orange cone. Dave (13m 57s): Yeah. Andrew (13m 58s): With very stiff or whiskers in the back. And that’s also gotta be like just doing some water displacement. But they’re not these big bulky like bigger profile flies that you’d see typically on the west coast. Dave (14m 12s): Yeah, they’re more, yeah, they’re smaller flies, more traditional. I mean almost more like a traditional wet fly. Right. Like a, something you’d use. That’s, it seems like the smaller the better when you look at some of the flies. And I mean, and then I go to the Atlantic salmon, the traditional stuff, some of the, you know, the, the highly dressed, I’m not sure where those would be used. Do you guys ever, have you ever tried any of that stuff? Andrew (14m 35s): No, not like, not the classic stuff. We, we have like a couple that were like given to us by friends that are just again, into like the fly tying world and, and they’re kind of a point of pride. I don’t know, I I would guess it might’ve been, you know, was it maybe just like showing off back in the day? Dave (14m 53s): Right. Maybe that’s what it was. Yeah, Andrew (14m 56s): I think so. To, to a certain extent. Maybe like, you know, If you go back a hundred years, it was just kind of a point of like, ooh, like look at how cool this, these flies are with imported material and like very elaborate fly design. I don’t know like if there’s anything comparable to this day, maybe like the, I’ve got a buddy who’s like really into small bath bass fishing and he gets these like hard plugs and jerk baits from Japan and they cost like an arm and a leg and they’re hard to find. And maybe that’s a little bit the, the essence of the guys were doing a hundred years ago. Dave (15m 29s): Yeah, that’s right. They’re more fly tires than Fishman maybe. And, and it looks like some of the flies, like the ghost stonefly is, I mean, is it green? Is is typically, is it looks like that bright green almost chartreuse is, is that a pretty common, If you had to pick one color? Andrew (15m 42s): It’s a common color out here. Dave (15m 44s): Yeah, green. So green and red. So are, are those the two, what’s the two most common color for like the body Andrew (15m 50s): Bonnie? Yeah, definitely some green colors. Some blues would work really well. Yellows, oranges, Dave (15m 57s): Like a blue charm, right? Or something like that. Andrew (15m 60s): Yeah, like blue charm could work super well and If you get into the PC, the people will just change the colors up on ’em, you know, like the under wing. So the fly is predominantly gray. Dave (16m 13s): Oh, is the P-C-A-S-P-C-A-S, Andrew (16m 15s): Yep. Dave (16m 15s): How do you, how do you Oh, PCAs fly. Yeah. P-P-P-P-I-C-A-S-S-E. Andrew (16m 20s): Yeah, exactly. And these are kind of cool and people will tie ’em with like hair and feathers and they can get like a little bit off Dave (16m 27s): Here. Oh yeah, yeah. See those look a little, yeah, I’m looking at ’em now. Now that looks a little more, at least these are tied more on traditional, you know, up I hooks BI see it. So it’s kinda a dark fly. It’s got a green, maybe a green hair wing or something like that. Andrew (16m 39s): Yeah, that’s, and people will play with a harrow wing color. Yeah, Dave (16m 42s): I see. So there you go. But yeah, very streamlined. So that’s what we’re looking at. So you could probably take any flies you were maybe using, you know, with summer steelhead, you know, I always make that analogy the summer steelhead is probably the best analogy, you know, but I know, I don’t think there, I don’t think there’s many summer steelhead on the east coast or is there, have you fished for summer or is it mostly winter steelhead that you’ve done? Andrew (17m 2s): So I’ve done mostly winter steelhead. Yeah. So, you know, when I was younger, basically we’d get through the guide season and then fly out to BC did three trips out there. So that was fun. Two of them in the fall, you know, leaning into early winter. And then a couple years ago we went to see a super good friend of ours on the lower Chena. And we did, we fished in April, which was super fun Dave (17m 25s): Fish. The Fly guide service is dedicated to sharing the incredible fly fishing opportunities around Jackson Hole. 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And that’s what I think is what’s great about, you know, this trip, the Atlantic salmon is that it’s you, it’s more the fish are more active, like you’re saying that they’re, they’re moving more and it sounds like you guys get some action there. What is, so maybe talk about the lodge that you have going, this is something new that you’re, have you, is it opening just this year for the first time? Or talk about that a little bit. Andrew (18m 35s): Yeah, so it’s gonna open this year being like our own place essentially. It’s myself and my partner Sarah, And we have another guy Kyle Schafer out from the US that’s giving us a hand and partner in the business. But Sarah Kyle and I have been working together getting to know one another a lot in the last four years now I guess. And So we put together some, essentially some pop-up lodges. We rented out a camp that wasn’t operating in the, in the later summer months And we had some friends of Kyle and some, some of our friends come up and kind of check out the fishery and run it a little bit more as a, as a five day program. So we kind of took baby steps that way And we wanted to find a property here in casket PD St. Andrew (19m 20s): Jewels. We really wanted to be in this town ’cause this is where Sarah grew up, this is where we live and we know the community super well. So it took us a while to find the right property, but we eventually did, took us even longer to actually purchase it And we got our hands on it last spring. So then we hopped in and started building it back up and getting ready for the camp for this season coming. Dave (19m 47s): Wow. Yeah. So this is it. So this is the se So you’re gonna be out there fishing out of this, out of the lodge this year? Andrew (19m 54s): Yeah, correct. How nice. Yeah, we’re super excited. It’s gonna feel nice to be in our own spot, you know, and yep. This being like a new property, like a new project, we were able to, to really tailor it to our needs and kind of what we learned from, from previous work experiences and just little stuff like how we set up the kitchen just So we know that it’s easier for, for a chef to work in how we’re storing our boats, how we’re storing our gear. We made sure we had like room to put stuff away. You know, we took the time to build a like a little waiter room so when the guys come back from fishing, we’ve got this little room where you can kind of get rid of your fishing tackle, you know, get out of your, your wet waiters for the day and there’s a, there’s a fireplace in there, we can dry the stuff out and you don’t have to like live with it in your room. Andrew (20m 41s): Right. Just little touches that we yeah, we were like thinking about and stuff we, we saw at other lodges while we were traveling that we wanted to integrate. So that’s been fun is to really like, kind of customize it to what we think is the best version we could do. Dave (20m 55s): Gotcha. Is there a mix of people driving out there or most people flying out coming into that area? Andrew (21m 1s): Yeah, it really depends. So the gas bay is not necessarily like the easiest destination to get to? Yeah. Just because it’s, it’s far and it’s a low population density. So most of the East coast guys will drive up ’cause we’re essentially like eight hours away from Boston. Oh, okay. Yeah. If I’m catching an international flight to go somewhere, I’ll, I’ll drive to Boston Airport or Portland fly out of there. So the East coast crew, they tend to drive up and if anybody’s like flying in from the west coast or a little bit further, they usually end up landing in, in Bathurst, which is about an hour and a half away And we go pick ’em up at the lodge and, and bring ’em back. It’s like a really nice scenic coastal drive and it’s pretty well connected. You know, it’s in Air Canada flight so you know, you hop into Toronto or Montreal and then you, you get the, it’s like an hour and a half, two hour flight to get to, to Bathurst. Andrew (21m 50s): So it’s all pretty well connected. It’s a bit of a mix. It is nice to drive up like with your own vehicle if, if you’re a little bit adventurous. ’cause once you’re done with the lodge, maybe, you know, I still think it’s one of the coolest road trip destinations to do the entire loop of the gas bay. Dave (22m 5s): Oh yeah, that would be cool. Andrew (22m 7s): And you can just go out and fish like all these rivers along the way or you know, hit some, hit some salt spots for stripers. It’s a, it’s a cool, like it’s always been known as a road trip destination so I do, I do recommend sometimes people like take your car out and drive it. But yeah, we’ve got that connection. There’s this private airport nearby So we will have some guests that will charter out of Montreal and come into that if the flights don’t quite line up for, for their needs. And you can take the night train, which is really cool. Definitely not the most efficient way of doing it. Dave (22m 37s): Yeah. But If you have time. Yeah, Andrew (22m 39s): If you got time it’s fun. You know it’s got the food cart and the bar cart and placing cards all night and kind of, you know, you wake up and you arrive in the Edia Valley and it’s like this beautiful train ride to come into Dave (22m 50s): It. Oh that sounds pretty awesome. Yeah, that sounds great. And so the timing, it’s pretty short season for the Atlantic salmon. Is this kind of a June july, what does that look like? Andrew (22m 58s): We run from June to September. Dave (22m 60s): Yeah, June to September. So yeah, so June, so when would be your last trips out there? Andrew (23m 6s): So September 30th is really kind of our close dates. Dave (23m 9s): Okay. So yeah, so you cover, so there is a good, and then when do you start, when typically when would you be starting there? Andrew (23m 16s): June 1st man. Dave (23m 17s): Yeah, so right on it. So you have four good months there. Is there, is it kind of, there’s a, a little bit of a shoulder season on the, you know, June and September or do you guys get fish? Is it pretty solid throughout those four months? Andrew (23m 28s): It is pretty solid ’cause I, I must say we’re lucky in Quebec and we’re lucky in this particular area where we have access to essentially like four salmon rivers within a 45 minute drive. So we can find And we can fish the rivers. We have like good access to public water. So we have these longer stretches of, of river. So we can, depending on how the migration is going, where the fish are heading up, we can find some spots where the fish are tend to be happier. We have some rivers that run colder than than others. The grand is a little bit tinted, so a heat up a little bit more in the summer. Whereas say the petite casket pedia will remain really cold throughout. So we look at water temps, we play around that. Obviously the, sometimes it can be shoulder seasons August, you know, can be a little bit slower at the time of month. Andrew (24m 14s): I do enjoy fishing personally ’cause there’s barely anybody on the water. We keep an eye out on water temps, you know, we don’t want to mess around with the salmon fishing if the water’s getting too hot. Like that’s really something that concerns us a lot. So we kind of have a policy in, in August to usually fish like really early in the mornings if there’s no flow. But the cool thing about August is when you get a dump of water, ’cause you’ll get a storm that will come through like a little rogue, you know, thunder shower or something. Or you’ll get maybe a day of rain and if these waters like bump up, it’s chaos, you know, it’s on, it’s on man. It just goes crazy. And two years ago we had a couple of groups back to back coming up, especially for the striper fishery ’cause August is nice and warm and you know, like steep water and stuff. Andrew (25m 2s): And we got dumped on like crazy. Like we had, the rivers were flowing higher than they do in the runoff, essentially. Like we had such a high amount of water which kind of hindered or flat fishery quite a bit. But the salmon fishing ended up being great and we’re talking to the other guides in our area and everybody’s like, yeah this year, like August was the month to fish it. It’s just, it’s water dependent, right? Like any migratory fish, any sea running fish like that I find like water flows are, are super important. They don’t like it when it’s low and slow. So we work around that and I, that’s why we, we have a pretty robust, you know, brook trout fishing program and that’s why we like to focus on the stripers and kind of mingle everything together. Andrew (25m 47s): So depending on what the guests want to do, what people want to come up and do and experience, we’re kind of ready to, to offer it. And then we’ll make some recommendations based on what we think will give the best fishing depending on what people again wanna experience. Dave (26m 0s): Gotcha. So if somebody’s coming up for a, a week up there, you could in, let’s just say what, what would be the time where you could have a chance at those three species? Is there a good time there? Oh, Andrew (26m 11s): Year round. Dave (26m 12s): Yeah, it’s year round. So all those brookie the Andrew (26m 14s): Only ones, yeah. Yeah, the brookies could be a little bit harder in, in June essentially we like to focus on the brookies kind of starting, you know, if we’re third of the way through July, we’ll start going a little bit more on Brookie trips. There’s some smaller, you know, smaller streams that get resident fish that we can focus on earlier than that. But the, the salmon and the stripers kind of line up pretty well at the start of the season. And then we go through June, july. It’s just everything is bumping August again. Super good to play around with the brook chat a little bit. If we get a bump of water, that’s great. The salmon fishing, it’s, again, it’s my time to fish ’cause it’s usually like, or less busy time in guiding, like if I’m gonna have a couple days off in a row. Andrew (26m 60s): It’s been August in the last few years, so we’ll make the time to go salmon fishing And we figure it out, you know, but we might be throwing size 12, size 16, like really small tube flies kind of hitched, you know, on the surface or or stuff like that. Just like trying different stuff and get up in the morning and, and go for it. But we’ve had, we’ve had good success. And then September everything kind of picks back up. I guess the, the brook trout fishing closes early September and then we usually get the, the first couple of storms or the hurricane tail outs that kind of hit us. So we tend to get higher flows. So the salmon fishing gets good again and, and or like gets really hot on the two handers. Andrew (27m 42s): The males get like a little bit more brutish, kinda starting to get into, into spawns. Dave (27m 50s): Well when are they gonna be spawning out there? Andrew (27m 52s): It happens like I couple weeks after our close, so it’s like late into October essentially we will see a little bit of pre-read activity in, in late September, but it’s not, it’s not as noticeable. Dave (28m 9s): It’s not. So at the start in June you’re seeing fish that are chrome bright and then by September before it closes, are you seeing fish with some, are they getting some coloration on them? Andrew (28m 18s): They’re pretty colored up usually Dave (28m 20s): And they’re just colored up with just the, the typical some what, what is, I’m just the Atlantic Sam. What do they look like when they’re really colored up before spawning? Andrew (28m 28s): They look, I guess they look like a brown trout, essentially. Dave (28m 32s): Yeah, right. That’s what they do. Yeah. They become more, yeah, exactly. Andrew (28m 35s): Yeah. Yeah. You can see the, you know, they’re, they’re kind of cousins. They’re, they’re related, the brown, sharp atlantic salmon and you can really see it when they’re, yeah. When they’re colored up or they’ll look like, obviously it’s kind of the same fish, but like anybody that’s caught a landlock in in in the northeast in October. Yeah. Landlock, you know, like they kind of have those, those colors. But they’ll start di bright and then they go through a variation of color and you’ll see the, the odd fresh fish in September and and October. ’cause there’s still some fish running through the season. But the bulk usually come in at late June is kind of mid-June. Late June is when we get the big push of fish usually. Dave (29m 13s): Okay. And, and so, and you’re fishing a little, what, what are the, the lines you are fi is this pretty much all dryly dry lines? What, what, what does that look like? Andrew (29m 22s): Yeah, it’s dry lines, grease lines kind of long leaders scandy style, really rare that we’ll bring out the, anything that’s like heavy I’ll fish, maybe a light sink tip, you know, nothing too heavy but just to make sure my fly is kind of tracking in the water. Dave (29m 40s): Yeah, like a intermediate sink tip or something like that. Andrew (29m 43s): Yeah. Or like slow sink. Something that gives like an inch and a half a second or something. Nothing crazy. Dave (29m 49s): Yep. Just to get under the surface. Yeah, Andrew (29m 51s): Just to get out. And the only time I’ll fish low and slow is like the last 10 days of September if we’ve got, you know, a good fall where it’s getting cold. ’cause we’ll get frost in the mountains by late August, you know, on a, on a year where the winter’s kind of lining up. So the the temperatures cool out, the water gets like super high and then I find the salmon will behave a little bit more like a steelhead. They’ll like those like slower presentations. I’ll fish like a two inch, two and a half inch hobo spay. Dave (30m 28s): This is in the fall? Yeah, Andrew (30m 29s): In the fall, yeah. At the, at the tail end of the season. It, it’s a way I enjoy fishing ’cause it’s, you know, a steelhead fishing the Great Lakes or whatever lake run rainbow, whatever you wanna call ’em. But I was, I was doing more steelhead fishing when I was younger than I was Atlantic salmon fishing. Just, I was a little bit closer to those river systems. It was cheap for me to go with some buddies over the weekend. So I’ve got still like that itch inside of me of like, let me throw an intruder on a, on a sink line and see like how they behave to it. Dave (31m 0s): Yeah. That’s cool. So you do get a little bit of that later and then the dry flies too, right? Are you getting pretty good action? Like what, what would be a fly on the surface? Are you, are you using that quite a bit or did we already talk about some of those flies? Andrew (31m 13s): No, we fish. I mean the bomber is just, Dave (31m 16s): Yeah the bomber. The bomber, that’s Andrew (31m 17s): The one. That’s the one, you Dave (31m 19s): Know, that’s all you need. So you just need a bomber is pretty much all you need. Andrew (31m 22s): Yeah, and it’s funny ’cause you’re talking about like fly color, the one fly I’ll get, like I’ll go through a couple colors and like work a fish for longer is a bomber. ’cause you’ll see it, you know, you’ll get to a pool again. The water’s like crystal clear so you can see the fish are laid up and If you throw a bomber and on the first like two or three hits you can kind of see that it’s bugging him or, or you know, salmon kind of maybe came up a little bit and then gave up on it. That’s definitely somewhere where I’ll stick on that fish a little bit longer. I’ll rest it, you know, kind of sit on the bank, shoot the shit for 10, 15 minutes, try a different color, you know, do two, three passes, Adam, see if he comes back to it, if he gets excited, play with the size a little bit. Andrew (32m 4s): So, but it’s always the same fly. It’s always a bomber or a bug, whatever. It’s just like minor differences but essentially a, a floating cork there. Dave (32m 12s): Right. And that’s typically in that June, July, August. Is that usually the best time? Andrew (32m 18s): Yeah, it, it’s good pretty much year round. It’s just the fish need to be in, in water that’s a little bit warmer. You know, I like to start doing some dry fly fishing like that if it’s above 58, just ’cause they, you, you need that little spurt of activity and get them kind of a little bit more aggressive I guess when the water heats up a little bit. If not they’re just, they’re a little bit more sluggish in, in the cold, cold water. But it will start like, you know, second week of June maybe. It depends on the years. You know, last year we had, we had a really early and really warm spring And we had some fish come up and you know, we heard a fish being caught on bombers like in, in the first week of June, which is not common. Andrew (33m 0s): And other years, you know, big snow pack, lot of runoff, you can get some mucky maze and you might have to wait till July to really start dry fly fishing. Dave (33m 10s): Okay. And so let’s just say we were gonna be there in July, say early mid July. And so then you could use a, a two hand rod or a single hand would either work then? Andrew (33m 22s): Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Dave (33m 24s): Okay. So if you’re bringing a a two handed rod you could bring a, and like you said a little bit shorter, so maybe something more like a 12 foot range as opposed to a 13 or even like you said 11 is better than the longer stuff. Andrew (33m 35s): Yeah, it’s definitely, it’s funny ’cause just last weekend we were having some a supper with some guy buddies And we got into this long winded argument about like the rod sizes. I’m a like 12, 12 and a half, seven weight. That’s the stick I like to throw. It feels good in my hand. It’s got like the stopping power that I need. I don’t fish like clicker reels, I fish dragged reels. It just feels comfortable for me for my personal casting style. But then my buddy Jack was, you know, he’s a 8, 9, 13, 6, you know, like a big, big stick. Again, it’s just gonna depend on personal preferences. Andrew (34m 17s): I think a 12 and a half seven weight is gonna cover most of these rivers, you know, unless you’re fishing the rusty goose. Sure. You’re fishing like edia, which tend to be really big or like the main stem of the grand, there’s some bigger pools, but the rest of the rivers something a little bit shorter works well. And then as soon as the flows keep going down, I’ll switch to, I’ll go to a switch rod, kind of the same, like an 11 foot seven weight drag rail again, just ’cause I don’t need that length. You know, you fish it enough that sometimes we’re all, you get into the groove and you’re space casting, which is like super enjoyable. But at, at some point If you stop thinking about it and you’re just like kind of throwing these long lines out, you might be fishing just too long for no valid reasons. Dave (35m 0s): Yeah. So you don’t have to, there’s lots of areas where they’re right, they’re in close. Oh Andrew (35m 4s): Yeah. They can be really, really close, you know, and especially the fish that are kind of taking, they’re gonna be in these like faster skinnier runs. Dave (35m 13s): Yeah, skinnier runs. Okay. Andrew (35m 14s): Yeah. So, you know, not necessarily need to bomb it all the way across and kind of, you don’t wanna catch the Eddie on the other side and then start with a slow presentation and just kind of whip it through the run. Dave (35m 25s): Oh, right. What is the typical water and what would be, let’s just say we were coming up there in, you know, like you said, early July, mid-July, what would be one of the rivers we’d likely be fishing? Andrew (35m 37s): I I, I mean ideally in a week, like all of them. I think that’s what’s interesting about what we’re trying to do and, and kind of our philosophies is to be like as flexible as possible. And we have a guide team that’s excited about that, that fishes all the rivers around here. So man, If you’re coming up and you’ve read about the Bonaventure all your life and you wanna spend like four days on the bon of venture, we’ll do it, you know? Dave (35m 60s): Okay. And is that the most fam what, because there’s a number of well-known rivers. What do you think are the, what what’s the most famous sort of the list of the top that you have there? Andrew (36m 8s): The most famous and the most written about would definitely be like the Grand Kpia. Yeah. It’s just this really iconic river. The, the issue with the grand is it’s one of the last strongholds of private fishing clubs in Quebec. Dave (36m 22s): Oh, gotcha. Andrew (36m 23s): So the main stem is split amongst about half a dozen private camps that have, you know, kind of exclusive beats to it. And then the other way you can fish it is through the, the CASP Pedia Society, which does give like, some public access, but it’s quite expensive. You know, we’re talking anywhere from 1200 to almost 2000 bucks for a day of fishing on the main stem. So very, very pricey. Yeah, it’s fun, it’s iconic. You get to fish these like legendary pools, but yeah, the, the grand is just like a little oddball. Dave (36m 55s): Yeah, the grand, okay. Andrew (36m 57s): The, the, the main stem. But what we do try to fish more is what we call the branches. So the, the river splits into two small area, smaller branch up river and that would be kind of more the public water we could say where we have access as independent guides a little bit more to the water and guiding. But it’s all draw. So I, the, the grant’s just like the, the most famous and the most finicky to get access on. Whereas the Bon Ventures is one of the rivers in Quebec where you have like the most public water and also like the way they split it up, there’s just like a ton of, of access and really good pools in the unlimited public access rivers. Kind of the same thing for the petite. Andrew (37m 37s): And then we always take care of like having all of our guests enter the, the draw. So there’s always, there’s a continuous lottery where you can access some beats with, you know, a a lower amount of rods. Yeah. The, the salmon access and Quebec, every time I go through it, it’s just like, Dave (37m 56s): It’s a lot to it. It’s Andrew (37m 58s): A lot to it. It’s really a lot to it. Once you get it, you know, you’ll get the hang of things. Dave (38m 3s): Well what’s it called there? The system? Is there a name of that system? Andrew (38m 7s): Yeah. So the, the managing arms are called Xs. Dave (38m 11s): Yeah, that’s right. So we’ve heard on our, in the bucket series, Brian has talked a little about with some guests that I think one of ’em, I can’t remember the name who had on, but he mentioned how much they love that system. Yeah. And why is that? Why is this, because the other thing you could look at other areas where it’s either all private or it’s a different type of system. Why is the Z system so, you know, is good? Why is it good? Andrew (38m 34s): Well, what’s great about the ZEC is it puts a lot of power into the angler’s hands, right? So they’re run by nonprofit boards. I got to sit on one of those boards for a couple years on the petite. And so you can have people that really have to heart these rivers kind of drive how the ZEC is managed and they’ll provide private warden services. You know, there’s employees that are just gonna be like wardens for the entire season. So we can cut down on poaching and make sure everybody’s playing by the rules. But Zacks will also be involved in various conservation projects, you know, on the grand they have a biologist that’s, you know, almost full time. So we can do, we’ll get yearly fish counts, we’ll do some good tracking. Andrew (39m 18s): In the last few years there’s been a lot of talk about identifying cold water shelters and maybe putting those off limits to angling in the summertime so those fish can get a, a break in, you know, those fresh water, cold water sources coming out in the river. So it’s just interesting to have this, these, these people. ’cause they, they have managers that are, that work, you know, full-time jobs just taking, looking after these rivers. And so they’ll look after them and on the flip side they’ll also provide access. So this is a very, you know, it’s a very comfortable sport where you’re, you’re out in the wilderness, you know, on, on these wild rivers. But the Zacks will manage dry toilets, they’ll manage picnic areas, warming and stuff like that. Andrew (40m 2s): Road access, the, you know, you go to the ZEC and they’ll give you a map of all the name pools and then when you’re driving on the logging roads, like you have signs are custom printed, made out, nice access, they’ll build staircases down, you know, spaces. So it’s not, this isn’t the wilds of, of the northwest, you know, where you’re scrambling up and down hills and trash. Sure. Back country, there’s a properness to it. Dave (40m 28s): Step into the world where the river whispers and the fishing is nothing short of legendary. This year I ventured into the heart of Eastern Idaho’s Yellowstone Teton territory where the fish were larger than life and the waters held the secrets of the best fly fishing out West Yellowstone Teton territory is not just a location, it’s a gateway to adventures that will etch themselves into your memory with crystal clear rivers like the Henry’s fork and the South Fork of the snake and enough lakes to keep you going all year long. Make your way to Yellowstone Teton territory and embark on a journey to one of North America’s finest fly fishing destinations. Whether you’re planning your trip now or just dreaming it up, the YTT is where those dreams turn into reality. Dave (41m 11s): Remember Yellowstone Teton territory, that’s Teton, T-E-T-O-N. It’s time to experience eastern Idaho for yourself and support this podcast at the same time. Is there a system of like the drawing? How does that work? The drawing system? Could anybody, if somebody was down in Maine or something like that, could they just enter and get a spot and figure out when they’re fishing? Andrew (41m 35s): Yeah, so it’s a, it’s like a, essentially a three-tiered system. There’s what we call public water or what I like to say public unlimited, which basically you don’t need a reservation to go fish that water. You can just wake up in the morning, buy your, your tags. So you need to check in at the zeck office. Now, you know, thankfully we can do all of that online, which, which helps tremendously. When I first started here, you know, you’re driving like 45 minutes the wrong way to go to the SEC office. Oh right. 45 minutes back to get your tag for the day or whatever, you know. But yeah, so you can get your, your tag, you sign up, you know, you get your, your fishing license from the provincial government. You go on the Z website, you buy your, your public sector tag and you can go and fish for the day. Andrew (42m 17s): And then the rest of the rivers are usually split into beets which have limited access. So you’re still, you know, the public, the general public can still access it. But usually there’s a limited amount of rods. It might be some sectors only two rods fishing, some sectors maybe eight or 10. It really depends on how this deck wanted to split it. It’s gonna depend on how many pools you get out of it. It’s, that’s kind of where it gets a little bit harder to navigate as an outsider to access those. There is a preseason draw. So on November 1st of every year for most of the rivers you can buy like seven tickets per person and you just, they do this massive draw with, you know, really gonna depend on the rivers, but a couple thousand participants. Andrew (43m 2s): So Dave (43m 2s): It’s a draw. Is it a draw where they just, you put in for it and then there it’s like a random draws? Or is it like first come first serve? Andrew (43m 9s): It’s a random draw. Yep. They draw it randomly and what that gives you is the bit they put you on a call list and then if you’re that the tippy top of the call list, you’re the first one to get the phone call and you basically have the entire calendar to pick out of. And again, it’s gonna depend on the z like some of them will be like, okay, if you’re picking in June or July, you can only pick two days of fishing. If you’re picking in August or September, you can get three or four days of fishing. Right. They’re kind of trying to manage access as equally as they can, but that’s also something we navigate with our clients or, And we navigate ourselves just kind of trying to pick that out and then they go down the list and so the lower you are on the list, the less you know, choice you have on what you want to pick. Andrew (43m 51s): And you know, some people will just be like a whatever I no need for the draw this year. They’ll give up their spot. The next guy might take something, might not. Just really depends. And then the last tier is those sectors that you can draw in preseason usually have, they’re almost always like a 50 50 split. So if there’s eight rods, there’s gonna be four rods drawn out in, in November and then the other four are put into a short-term draw. So they usually happen 48 hours in advance. Dave (44m 20s): Gotcha. So you can call in. So If you were going, If you were going, yeah, if it was, you know, June 20th and you called June 18th, four, eight hours before you can put in And again, is it a draw like the first come or you put in for Yeah, Andrew (44m 32s): It’s, yeah, random draw. So you buy a ticket, it’s like two, three bucks. You can just buy one entry in the 48 hours. You just put your name in and then they draw, they draw that afternoon or whatever. And then it’s the same principle. They’ll do a call list and then they go down the list. But that’s like something that we, we handle as like lodge managers for our clients and our guide team. ’cause again, being an independent guide, I’ve, I’ve known the struggle of like not knowing if you’re on the call list or you got a pre-arrangement with the Z and this and that. ’cause you’re guiding people Dave (45m 1s): Right. As a guide. Yeah. That seems interesting. ’cause you got people coming in, they’re planning on, like right now, let’s just say we were planning on, okay, we’re gonna be there on our trip in, you know, July 7th, but we don’t know what we have. I mean you have the public water, right? So you could have that, but the limited rod entry, you might not have a spot. Right? And but, but you could get a spot within 48 hours. How do you guys balance that? Andrew (45m 23s): We really just, we have a conversation on the first night, essentially with everybody’s goals and like what they want to do. And you know, if, if somebody’s up here for the striper program and doesn’t really care about the draw, we’ll still put his name in, but we won’t necessarily take it on his behalf. But we just try to have a conversation with him and like, If you want, like do you guys want to fish these beats If you come up and you know, we’ll make a decision as managers to take the, the water that we think is worth it or not. And again, it’s just gonna depend on what the, what the client wants to do. Yeah. ’cause their guides are comfortable fishing pretty much. And you know, all the sectors are out here. Yeah. Dave (45m 59s): They can fish at all. The good thing about it is, is that it’s not necessarily, it’s a draw, right? So it’s not a big pay to play or, or there are some private sections, but for the most part this sounds like this is mostly a public draw system. Andrew (46m 13s): That’s it. There’s always like a, there’s always a rod fee and the draw sectors tend to be a little bit more expensive, but it’s not like in the thousands of dollars, you know, it might be right. You might go from a day rate that’s like 80 something bucks to like a hundred. Yeah. Dave (46m 26s): And that’s why the Z system I see why, you know, and again, there’s other areas around in the US that they do draws for like, you know, go back to like the rafting stuff. These really busy rivers, the Colorado or the, you know, grand Canyon, lots of rivers where they put draws in the same sort of thing you put in just like that and, and it’s, you know, it’s random and it tends to, I feel like it, it works because it limits the pressure. Right. And it, it provides for a better experience. Which it sounds like that’s what you get here. Andrew (46m 53s): Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean it kind of evens out the pressure spreads it out a little bit. It reduces the amount of anglers on the water all at once. Dave (47m 1s): Right. What would happen If you, let’s say, you know, there wasn’t a X system, it was pretty much just all, you know, public go whenever. What, what would that be like do you think? Andrew (47m 11s): Well, for starters, I don’t think there’d be very many Atlantic salmon left at all. Dave (47m 14s): Oh, right. So that would be it. People would be hammering them. Andrew (47m 17s): Well, we’re the Quebec, you know, the typical Quebec clientele definitely likes to eat fish. And, and there’s definitely like people that aren’t afraid to poach around here. And I think the one thing that was, that kept these fish safe for that amount of time is just having wardens and having guides and having people work on these rivers. Sure. So I don’t know, I I don’t think there’d be that. Dave (47m 40s): Yeah. So the Z system is as much about the draw, limiting the experience, but also the people on the rivers and protecting it and, and keeping poachers out. That’s, it seems, sounds like that’s as much of a, a big deal for the Zack system. Andrew (47m 53s): Yeah, a hundred percent. And you know, it’s gonna depend from Z to Zack depending on what the board wants to do. But in the last few years you’ve seen it like such a big uptick in conservation projects led by Zacks or in collaboration with the provincial government and the, the Quebec Salmon Federation, just kind of these three units working together. ’cause they do, some of ’em I do have like good amount of money like sitting in, in accounts depending on, on how they’re spending it and they’re managing it. So they kind of run as little businesses that have like, again, they’re non-profits but they’re trying to break even every year. Dave (48m 28s): They’re businesses. They have to have a profit. Andrew (48m 30s): Yeah. And some of ’em have like the petite casia, you can rent cottages. They, they bought, like, they inherit an old fishing camp years ago. And so you can kind of get your fishing rights through them and you can get like a, you can get a room at the camp and if it’s available and they have campgrounds, you know, the Bonaventure runs this really nice campground called, I guess it’s like in the headwaters, you’re out in the middle of the woods and they have this, this nice spot where you can pitch for the week and you know, you’ve got the showers in the toilets and power and internet. It’s kind of nice to, to get those services. It’s a very Atlantic salmon fishing is still a gentleman’s sport, you know. Dave (49m 11s): It is. Are there still lots of tweed hats and all that stuff out there, people, you know, wearing the old traditional style clothing. Is it, do you see some of that? Andrew (49m 20s): Not a lot, but I do own a tweed hat that Dave (49m 22s): I’ll Oh you do? Yeah. I, Andrew (49m 23s): I’ll pick it out every now and again just for fun, you know, if I’m fishing with, oh yeah, we trying to be like potential. Dave (49m 29s): No, I love it. I love it. I think that’s, you know, I think that I love the traditional stuff. I, I don’t really wear it, but I would, you know, I feel like it, it is a, it is a good style, you know, and it actually, I’m sure most of it’s wool, so it probably has some, some positive factors there. But, okay, so this is good. So that’s the Z system that really works well. It sounds like your operation is pretty diverse. It’s like even if one river’s not in, you can go somewhere else. So if somebody was really thinking like, I am Atlantic salmon is, you know, my thing, you guys could cover that. But it sounds like also if they were interested in maybe mixing it up Atlantic salmon and stripers, that would be a, a worthwhile, do you find typically more people are doing that than just the one species? Andrew (50m 8s): Yeah, you know, I think that’s really what we do. Well. We do the Atlantic salmon super well. Again, it’s tradition and guides that we are working with. Were pretty much all independents in the last few years and they’re close friends of ours and they were all sanon people essentially. So they know that program well. They can take you out on it. I guess at this point I’m really the one that kind of pioneered the flats fishery for the stripers here. So it, it is a little bit closer to my heart. I think it’s just an amazing flats fishery right now. It’s it, yeah. Good enough to stand on its own, you know? Dave (50m 42s): Right. And this is right there. Is this near, oh, this like where the Andrew (50m 46s): Right in close. This is five miles away from the lodge. We’ve got a boat ramp And we can put the skiffs in there. So what we do is we trailer all of our boats, you know, we keep ’em at the lodge on trailers and in the morning, depending on wind condition. And just again, we try to rotate a little bit of flats and spread the boat traffic out as much as we can. But yeah, we’ll just hop in the car, launch the boat, you know, maybe drive like 20, 30 minutes, get to a spot, launch it, and some of the spots, man, you’re running a minute and a half. Some of the spots I’ve, I’ve pulled from the trailer and pulled all day, you know, never started the engine. Dave (51m 20s): Oh right, nice. So it’s cool. Andrew (51m 22s): It’s right there and it’s, it’s a lot of fun and the water’s like crystal clear. It’s all sight fishing and our fish gets skinny, you know, foot and a half inches sometimes. And we can chase ’em around like bonefish. We’ll get out of the boat, we’ll do some walking wave. Like that’s my absolute favorite. Good. Like short inbound. That’s not too aggressive. We’ve got some beautiful sand flats, man. I, I’ll just pretend like I’m in The Bahamas for a half a day. Dave (51m 48s): God sounds great. Andrew (51m 49s): Yeah, it’s so cool. We always recommend it. We have clients that have coming, you know, that fished with us for, for years on kind of when we’re independent or kind of mix and match bags and you know, they’re hardcore salmon dudes, but a lot of times we get ’em, you know, we’ll convince ’em maybe at, at the end of a week or something, they want a easier day. They’ll go flats fishing and then they just, they get it, you know, it’s, so they might return to it a little bit more in the next few trips. But regardless of what people want to do, we’ve got enough gear for the, for the eight rods, you know, we’ve got like four flats boat, we’ve got a center console. We’ve got all sorts of news and boats to do the, the salmon angling. We even have like a little john boat for pond fishing for brookies, you know, if somebody wanted to do that, like we just tried to cover all the bases for this area And we don’t force people into a program. Andrew (52m 38s): It’s a pick and choose adventure. So, you know, like when they come in on the first day, Sarah and I, we usually stick around for the entire evening just having a chat with everybody. Try to, you know, get a rough forecast of the weather, get a rough forecast of what everybody’s in for, like we do at pre-trip, but just, you know, make sure that the, the plan still holds. If they’re kind of, oh, I want to fish, you know, salmon all week. Alright, cool, we’ll build a trip around that. If somebody is like, I want to be again just striper fishing focused, cool. And then you get clients that are like, well you know, you guys know this area the best, you know what the weather’s gonna be like, so why don’t we build a trip and go along the week and kind of play around with that, which is also something we do. Andrew (53m 20s): And then just day of or night before, we just confirm the plan for the next day depending on what folks wanna do. And then our, and the next day we just, we do it. So it’s cool. Like there’s no, and it’s fisheries that bounce off one another. Well, you know, bright, sunny, low wind, warm late July August days usually make for some really good flats fishing. It’s nice to be on the water during that time and it’s just beautiful. And then, you know, If you hit into, you get into September and you get a tail end of a hurricane and it’s raining, you know, sideways for three days, salmon love that stuff. The flats fishing maybe not so much, you know, especially not for the guide on the platform. Dave (54m 1s): Yeah. So July might be a better time to, If you wanted to do the flats and the Atlantic salmon. Andrew (54m 7s): Oh, it’s good. I, the, the flats fishing is, is super consistent throughout like, you know, as soon as they show up, you know, the first few days of June, maybe if we get like a really cold long winter, like a long drawn out winter, they might show up around June 4th or fifth. So maybe the first few days of the season they’re not around. But then we get this highly consistent fishery all the way into October. ’cause we can fish for those, you know, a month longer. But it’s just, yeah, it’s cool. It’s a nice area where the, there’s no boat traffic in the gas bay, you know, there’s, on the 50 miles of coast we fish, there’s like two charters that are doing mostly like family trips with spinning rods and deep water stuff, you know, trolling in 30, 40 feet of water. Andrew (54m 54s): So we kind of have this huge coastline that we get to explore and play with. And we’re not like, we’re not racing another lodge or another guide to get to a spot, which is cool. And, and you can kind of see it in the fish. ’cause I know stripers, like in the northeast, our partner Kyle is a terrific, terrific, terrific flats guide for, for stripers down there. I know how hard those fish can be to catch, you know, they’re well educated, they’re older, they’re finicky, they can be spooky, but up here they’re just kind of a little bit more virgin. They’re a little bit more eager to eat. A lot of ’em haven’t seen us before. So it’s, it just makes for fun time. And I like the flexibility of just like running around and trying different spots on, on our tides. Andrew (55m 39s): And we’ll do some traditional stuff. We’ll do like, you know, a couple of rock points and deeper structures. So if we’re jumping from one flat to the next, we might, you know, if somebody’s up for it, I might just pull up to, to rock structure for like 10, 15 minutes and throw some big flies on, on sinking lines or you know, maybe throw like a, a hook list plug and just see if we can pop like a, a big fish off those rocks and then just, alright, let’s get back, back in the boat or let’s get back in the seat and just keep going. Hit another flat and just rotate through the area. It’s, it’s cool. Yeah. Dave (56m 10s): Wow. Sounds like a great opportunity. Well, let’s start to take it out here in a second here. We’re gonna kick this off with our fly fishing history segment today. And this is presented by Jackson Hole Fly Company and the history, we’re gonna have a history, a little history segment here, but just wanna shout out to first and, and I wanna ask you a question too. This goes back to the vest and I’m not sure If you knew this, but the first, the history lesson for today is the first fly fishing vest, right? Who created it? Do you know the answer to that? Andrew (56m 38s): I would say it’s probably filson. Dave (56m 40s): Ooh, that’s a good guess. Andrew (56m 42s): Would have to be one of those two I would say. But I don’t know. Dave (56m 45s): Yeah. So that is actually is a great guess, but I think who it is is, is Lee Wolf, right? Who is known as creating the fir the typical vest, which is, I used to love the vest, right? It was the pockets you put it on kinda like a, a jacket, not a jacket, but kind of like ave you know, it’s a vest obviously. Right? The fly vest, the old school, they kind of went away, right. Do you still see guys out there with the fly fishing vests? Andrew (57m 8s): There’s, there’s a certain age group that still has the vest, but I grew up into the, i when I started fly fishing the vest was in. And then I was definitely in that first generation of like, if you’re not using a hip pack, you look like a Dave (57m 22s): Yeah, that’s right. That’s what it is. It’s the, so it’s almost like the Yeah, the clothing, it shows your age. I mean I find what I love about and I’m, I’m guessing Atlantic Sam is the same way. I love just minimal. Right? Because is it the same thing? Could you just go out there with a little chest pack or a little tiny Oh and just be, or a little sling and just be good with that. You don’t need much Andrew (57m 42s): The, you know, my waiter pouch will be enough on certain days. I’ll bring like a spool of tipt pliers, you know, a dozen salmon flies and like two sink tips and that’s it. Like I don’t need more. Dave (57m 54s): Exactly. So that’s what’s cool about it is it’s just like summer steelhead especially, that’s all it is. And, and you’re out there and the weather’s good, right? July you, you guys, you have some good weather too, so, so yeah. So we wanna give a shout out to Jackson Hole. I’ve been using their, their sling vest, which actually I’ve been loving. It’s the perfect size. It’s kind of, you know, it’s not too huge, it’s not too small, but it’s just like that right? Put a couple fly boxes in there and some leader and you’re good to go. So, so first that’s our fly fishing history. The cool thing is, is Lee Wolf we’re gonna be hopefully heading up that I know he traveled around that part of the, the world back in the day Right. Flying his plane and stuff like that. So you guys don’t have to do that though, right? In your area. There’s no float planes aren’t required out there. Andrew (58m 34s): No, no. That’s it. We do all drive and it’s a little bit easier to get around down here. Dave (58m 38s): Yeah. A little bit easier. So to keep the history stuff going. You mentioned I think earlier about some of the legends out. Do you have a few people that you know that are in that area that are kind of known legendary, kind status for Atlantic salmon? Well, Andrew (58m 51s): I’d like to push like some of the really like local dudes, you know, I think there’s a couple of guys that don’t get like necessarily like huge exposure. There’s obviously like David Bishop, he’s right probably the best modern fly fishing guy in this area. Yeah, Dave (59m 8s): Right. David. And we’ve had him on the podcast here, this I think last year. Andrew (59m 12s): Man, like David will school you on the land salmon fishing. Dave (59m 15s): Yeah. And is he a single hand or two hand guy? Two Andrew (59m 17s): Hand guy. Dave (59m 18s): He’s two hand, Andrew (59m 19s): Two hand guy. Yeah, for sure. He’s also like, he’s definitely a big water early season dude. He is amazing to fish with. But you know, there’s a bunch of people around here that are a little bit more low key. Glenn Harrison, local guy, legendary. He is, been at it for super long. No website, no phone number. Got his cell phone like a couple years ago. Won’t give, won’t give out his number to anybody. Dave (59m 42s): That’s so cool. Andrew (59m 43s): Just such a fun cat to hang out with and has fished all these rivers like crazy. There’s, you know, bla amazing fly tire amazing guide has been added forever. Also invent the P cast and bunch of patterns that we use around here. And I mean there’s, there’s, yeah, there’s just a lot of these guys that kind of came into the system when the Salmon Rivers left the, the club scene. You know, like when public could get access in those first few guides that started like in, in the eighties and hadn’t these long careers and are kind of starting to retire now. There’s a lot of names and faces that come up in my mind, but they’ve lived a quiet existence of unbelievable fishing. Dave (1h 0m 23s): That’s so cool. And where did you grow up originally? Andrew (1h 0m 26s): I grew up in the eastern townships, so essentially just north of Vermont. In, in Canada of course, but more of the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain area. Dave (1h 0m 36s): Oh yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. So like a Montreal type area. Andrew (1h 0m 40s): Yeah, southeast of Montreal. Southeast, yeah. Yeah. So I, I grew up like my fly fishing culture when I was young and, and learning this thing was really far from the gas bay ’cause it’s about, you know, I’m about eight and a half hours away from my parents’ place, but the, the, the Adirondacks were right there, you know, right hour and a half to get to Lake Placid. So we were, we’d just camp and live in our cars and fish like the northeast us like crazy and the great lakes in the winter for, for that. And you know, small mouth fishing in Quebec around the island, Montreal and car fishing and muskie and all sorts of species. Dave (1h 1m 16s): Yeah. So you’ve been doing this all this a while. Andrew (1h 1m 18s): Yeah. Yeah. It’s been a very full life of fishing at this point And we still love it. We still get out every Dave (1h 1m 24s): Time. Yeah. The lodge seems like the next big step. How does that feel where you’re at now as you guys are getting close to, to launching this? Is this pretty exciting? What’s your feelings now? Is that you’re on the tip of it? Andrew (1h 1m 35s): It’s definitely like all the emotions at once. Dave (1h 1m 38s): Yeah. Because are you probably thinking like, hey I’ve now we’ve got this thing, you know, we’ve gotta make it work. Right. We can’t, we’ve gotta book, you know, book lodges right. Book places and all that stuff. So there’s some, a little bit of anxiety too, right? Andrew (1h 1m 51s): Yeah, yeah. It’s, but it’s also been like amazing and you know, the guide team that we’re working with has helped us like put it together in building it. And so we’re like, everybody’s hands on and connected to that place and the community around us. Like the town in Casp pedia is, I think connected to the place we’ve had so many cool people drop in and check it out and ’cause it was an abandoned house essentially that we’re Oh wow. Coming back. Yeah. So, you know, we’ve had people that come come in and they’re like, oh, I lived here 15 years ago when, when I first moved back. Like this was the house I rented for like, you know, a couple of months to get situated in the area. And we had people drop us like a ton of like interesting gifts and memorabilia, you know, like a salmon cutout from the 1920s, you know, kind of like old trophy mounts. Andrew (1h 2m 39s): We had some of our guide team just completed their, their professional captain’s course last week and the guy that was giving us the course dabbled in in commercial tuna fishing for years. So he brought us like old school, you know, like level wine reels and all sorts of stuff. He had like tucked away and he’s like, you know, I’m not, I’m not gonna give these to you if ever I leave this place I’m gonna come and get them. But it’s like they’re just sitting in my attic so like have ’em and have people, you know, mess around with it. And that’s been just amazing. So having that, you know, thank God we have that community that’s standing behind us and helping us out and you know, these other managers of private camps that we can kind of like exchange ideas with and stuff. Andrew (1h 3m 22s): But it’s been thrilling. It’s been exciting and it’s something we took our time, you know, Sarah and I working on for a really long time. Just fine tuning and getting better at, at the whole hosting thing that’s gonna feel different for me ’cause I was, you know, essentially always been a full-time guide for the past 10 years, 11 years I think. And this is gonna be the first season where I’m not expecting to spend my entire summer on the water. I’m gonna be much more in a management role. You know, I’m gonna sit back and support my team and maybe I’ll be the one doing the boat cleaning in the evening and Sure. Doing the maintenance and entertaining a little bit more. Dave (1h 3m 58s): Whatever it takes. Andrew (1h 3m 59s): Yeah. So that’s gonna be, you know, just the transition period. I’m like, I’m looking forward to also, ’cause it’s something we enjoy doing Sarah and I, we, the gas bay, the gas ian people are very gregarious And we always particularly loved hosting and having dinner parties at the house. And like our home has been a very busy place in the past five years. Dave (1h 4m 20s): And that’s where you, you guys live there in that town as well? Andrew (1h 4m 24s): Yeah, we were like five minutes away. Dave (1h 4m 26s): Oh yeah. So you’re right then. And you’ve been there for a little while. Yeah, Andrew (1h 4m 28s): I’ve been here for, since 2018. Dave (1h 4m 31s): Yeah. Good while. Gotcha. And then you said your partner, she grew up there? Andrew (1h 4m 35s): Yep. Yeah, she’s casp pedia through and through. Dave (1h 4m 39s): There you go. That’s pretty sweet. And it’s obviously different, you’re further out, you know, like you said, it’s just smaller, you know, it’s eight hours away so you’re out of the influence of all the right Quebec pretty far outta that. Andrew (1h 4m 51s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re the, the gas bay’s quiet, you know, the entire peninsula I think is like 47,000 people or something. The way I like to see it is we’re a, we’re a two streetlight county. Dave (1h 5m 3s): Yeah. Two streetlight. That’s pretty good. Nice. Well I was gonna ask just on a couple of tips before we get outta here and, and one of ’em was, I was just thinking, you know, teeing this up, somebody comes there, they’re getting ready for this trip to fish for Atlantic salmon. Let’s just keep it on that. What are some, you know, basically common mistakes that you see a lot that people make when they come there? What do, do you see some common things over and over again for new people to the area? Andrew (1h 5m 28s): I think for this particular location, it’s gonna sound silly, but coming in over prepared, you know, you’ll sometimes get people that will just buy these like fly boxes full of stuff and bring all this gear and we’re not in a, you know, we’re not in a remote location. We have this great fly shop. Dave (1h 5m 47s): Oh you do, you have a fly shop? Yeah, yeah, Andrew (1h 5m 49s): Yeah. We got the fly shop like right across the street. Oh Dave (1h 5m 51s): You do? What’s the name of the fly shop? Andrew (1h 5m 53s): Sextons and Sextons. Dave (1h 5m 54s): Sextons and Andrew (1h 5m 55s): Sextons. Legendary Atlantic Salmon Shop. Dave (1h 5m 57s): Oh it is? Oh cool. Sextons and Sextons. Yeah. Andrew (1h 5m 60s): Yeah. One of those definitely like chaotic fly shops where there’s like stuffed to the walls. Like everywhere there’s, there’s just like anything and everything you could need for Atlantic salmon fishing is there. Yeah, it’s kind of a funny trip ’cause I’m, I’m usually on the opposite at the end of the spectrum when I’m going into these remote places of just like triple packing everything. But like yeah like not necessarily kind of come in with an open mind, you know, we’ll go through the gear that you need to bring and bring that maybe like a spare rod or something. But don’t stress yourself out a couple weeks out thinking you’re not gonna have the right gear. You know, we tie flies throughout the season. We’ve got a lot of home brew stuff that we keep secret, you know? Andrew (1h 6m 40s): Yeah. And then we’ve got the fly shop next door and we’re there to support the team. So that’s like, just like a little mistake I can see. And I think it’s local knowledge and not necessarily like just strictly local knowledge but like what’s going on that week or like that period you visit anywhere I go, if I’m in an area with fly shops, I’ll carry about half the amount of flies I normally would. I’ll take the old standards and I’ll just go and spend some time and pick some brains and just try to see what’s going on that week. ’cause we all know how it is. Like we’ll carry 250 flies on the water and we’ll fish three patterns. Dave (1h 7m 19s): Yeah. That’s actually you have a, the green one like you said the chartres, the red and maybe a bomber. Yeah. Andrew (1h 7m 25s): And God forbid you hit a fish on one particular pattern. ’cause then it’s not only you but it’s you, your buddy and everybody else in that, in your circle trip that’s like, ooh, like that’s the one. Right, right. We build confidence and and excitement into these flies and you feel it, it becomes very hard to go away from it if it produces a couple of fish in a row. Oh Dave (1h 7m 45s): Yeah. Yeah. You gotta stick with it. So you’re on and you’re on the water with basically the basics, the supplies, you And then as you’re sitting there, what would be a couple of other tips you would give somebody that’s, you know, their first time on the water, they’re getting ready to swing their first make their first cast. What, what would you tell ’em? Andrew (1h 8m 2s): Start short. Dave (1h 8m 4s): Yeah, like short. Like short within like 10 feet. Just to get your tip out. Yeah. And just right in front of you. Andrew (1h 8m 9s): Yeah. ’cause they might be right there. Especially If you don’t know the water, they can be very, very close. Take your time going through the pool, you Dave (1h 8m 16s): Know? Yeah. How, how, what is the, what is the typical average? Is it cast, you know, swing? What, what’s that look like? The Andrew (1h 8m 22s): Cadence, cast swing, step down and that is very holy in Dave (1h 8m 27s): Quebec. Cast swing step down and these are some clear water so you might change that, but for the most part, a step or two sort of thing after between casts. Andrew (1h 8m 34s): Yeah. And there’s this whole angler etiquette, if ever you like bump it to someone else, like on the river, some of the more famous pools, you might get a couple of guys that will spend the day there and it’s like you have to start at the head of the pool. You know, you can’t step in below the dude or you have to let the finish the swing. You can’t be dry, you know, if you’re too slow they’ll tell you. And then If you get a hit, you’re only allowed, you know, you can’t stay there for an hour. You might get, you know, another five minutes to play with the fish, change your fly out, this that. But it’s regimented in that angling culture too. Yeah. Dave (1h 9m 9s): We were just talking to somebody the other day about in one of our low home waters where you have some conventional fishing and fly fishing mixed and sometimes you get these guys that are like, will post up right in the middle of the, the run where everybody’s swinging through and you’ll see some anger. Did you have that or the conventional guys fishing for these fish too? Andrew (1h 9m 27s): No, this is all fly fishing. It Dave (1h 9m 29s): Is that because is it fly fishing only or there just aren’t connect Andrew (1h 9m 31s): Fly fishing only and unweighted flies only. Dave (1h 9m 35s): Hmm. So no lures. Yeah, you can’t use any lures or anything. Andrew (1h 9m 38s): You can’t use, like you can’t put something on your fly that would change its action in the water, you know? So no Dick knight either. Dave (1h 9m 50s): What about the, the two, is it single hook or do you have the, the old school, the two hooked flies. Andrew (1h 9m 57s): You still allow the The double. Yeah, the double point Hook. Dave (1h 10m 0s): The double hook. And is that double hook that that is kind of for tracking to get it down for weight a little bit. Why? Why is the double hook used? Andrew (1h 10m 7s): So I don’t like the double hook just because I find it, it can hurt the fish. I will use the double hook, like you say, for on really small patterns. If I’m going like 10 and under, I might start bringing out some double hooks and I think it just kes the fly a lot better. Yeah. ’cause those smaller flies will tend to like spin on their own or just like Dave (1h 10m 31s): Oh right, because there’s not enough weight on the fly. Yeah. Andrew (1h 10m 33s): So they can just keel a little bit better and, and I mean if you’re fishing something like a size 12, you do need maybe that little extra gripping power. Well if it’s some barbless and a cut, like a lot of ’em, you know, just if, if I’m hesitant, you know, if he took it on the, on the tongue or something and it’s not bleeding, I’ll just, I’ll leave it in place and Dave (1h 10m 51s): Yeah. Right. Barbless is the way to go. Andrew (1h 10m 54s): Yeah. But we don’t do trebles, thank God. Dave (1h 10m 56s): Yeah, no trebles, right? Yeah, trebles is the next level. Oh, okay. But Andrew (1h 10m 59s): Yeah, it’s just, it, it’s cool. I mean I’ll, I’ll rotate back to like just a tip. It’s just like enjoy the day. Especially if you’re coming up on, on your own. It’s a very social experience to fish for Atlantic salmon. Like we say the Z will put out like picnic tables and benches and people, if there’s a drizzle man, somebody’s gonna start a fire, you know, get the fireplace going and you’ll get people that will, well we’ve done it too in the past, but we’ll, you know, bring down a bottle of wine to the river for fishing for fun and have like an elaborate lunch and yep. Just kind of hang out and enjoy, enjoy being on the water a lot. It’s not a, there’s a couple of people that do it really hardcore and it’s, it definitely pays out. Andrew (1h 11m 39s): But I think there’s a beauty and a kind of a reverence to just the social aspect of Atlantic salmon fishing is, is cool. Dave (1h 11m 47s): Yeah. Sounds like. No, it’s cool. And I think the area we’ve definitely heard about that the gas bay, you know, peninsula where we were talking about today and I, you know, shout out to Nicole, I know she was probably the one of the first people that I heard that had fished, you know, in somebody I knew that was fishing up there and she was just kind of raving about it. Right. How, you know, there’s so many great areas like you said in that whole part of Northeastern, you know, Canada, United States. But it’s definitely one of those spots so, so this has been great Andrew, I think we could leave it there for today and we’ll put everybody, we’ll send everybody out to gas bay coastal.com. Yes Andrew (1h 12m 21s): Sir. Dave (1h 12m 21s): And that’s G-A-S-P-E coastal.com if they want to connect with you and yeah, it sounds like you guys, if they were, this episode probably is gonna go out in a couple months, so it might be getting close to your season, but if they, is that the best way to check in on availability for your place this year? Andrew (1h 12m 37s): Yeah, a hundred percent. I will say I’m, Sarah’s got the organized mind and she will read your email and respond If you DM me or text me over phone, that might be a bit slower. Dave (1h 12m 49s): Sure. So email, so just go in there and and email to connect with you guys. Yeah, Andrew (1h 12m 53s): Yeah for sure. That’s the best way to reach us and we’re always happy to chat and hop on a call and just get everybody situated and then answer questions, man, the winter is time to think and talk about up here so it’s always a blast to do it. Yeah, Dave (1h 13m 7s): That’s cool. Well this is great. Well congrats on launching the the lodge and excited to keep in touch with you and hopefully we’ll be up there on the gas bay, you know, someday as well and someday soon and we’ll we will check back with you then. Andrew (1h 13m 17s): Thank you so much Dave. Dave (1h 13m 20s): A call to action for you today. Your call to action is if you’re interested in stripers, especially for flats up north salmon fishing for Atlantic Salmon, sea Run Brook Trout, you know where to go. Check in with Andrew gas bay coastal.com, let him know you heard this podcast and check in and see what he has going. We have a YouTube channel going strong right now If you haven’t checked it out, wet Fly swing on YouTube. Bruce Richards did a casting seminar, you wanna check that out. We’re doing a lot of shorter content there as well. Expanding on some of the podcast episodes we do. And then we’re doing some long, long, long form stuff around webinars and, and some of the best of the best are gonna be on. Dave (1h 14m 1s): So Bruce Richards check that out. That’s on there right now. Mentioned at the start, the Missouri trip is going right now. We just kicked it off. If you’re interested in heading out to the Missouri Fish with me and a group, group from the, from this podcast, go to wetly swing.com/missouri. M-I-S-S-O-U-R-I, all sorts of great stuff on the Missouri Big trout, big fish per mile numbers, and an epic little lodge that we’re gonna be staying at Family owned lodge. Can’t wait for this. Wanna remind you before we get outta here, next episode is a big one. Jack Dennis is back, the man himself. We’ve heard so much about Jack Dennis, you know, whether from Scott at Grand Teton or Jeff Courier, all the influences and Jack’s gonna bring a big one on Monday. Dave (1h 14m 44s): Don’t miss this. He’s one of the biggest names in fly fishing and he’s got so many stories that they’re bulging out of his, out of his ears. So we can’t wait to share this one on Monday. Alright, I’m getting outta here. Appreciate you, I appreciate you for stopping by today. Hope you have a great morning, hope you have a great afternoon or a fantastic evening. If it’s evening and, and you’re enjoying it right now, maybe the, maybe the moon’s out you’re hearing the hearing the frogs off in the distance. If that’s you, I hope you have a good night And we will see you on that next episode. Talk to you then.