Adventure Travel with William Blair - The Best of the Wild - Adventure Travel Podcast - Big World Made Small

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of
the Big World Made Small podcastfor the Adventure Traveler.
So happy to have each and everyone of you back today and very
excited to have my guest today.
We've got William Blair.
Will is the manager of the bestof the wild.
Will, welcome to the show.
Happy to have you here.

SPEAKER_03 (01:23):
Oh, Jason, it's nice to be on here.
You know, you reached out and uhand you know, we have a mutual
Orvis connection where we've metbefore.
So thank you.
I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:35):
Yeah, it's it's it's great to reconnect because
you're one of those guys thatI'd had a little bit of dealings
with at Orvis, and some of mycolleagues there had more
dealings with you.
And um, and then you and Ihaven't connected and I don't
even want to say how long it'sbeen.
It's been it's been a day ortwo.
Um it's nice to nice toreconnect with you.
And you've got some stuff you'redoing that's just super

(01:56):
fascinating.
And I know our listeners aregonna um for some of them, it'll
be kind of an aha eye-openingmoment, like, wow, I didn't even
know people did that stuff.
And then others will have beenfollowing you for a while, so
it'll be kind of fun.
Um we're definitely gonna getinto your background because
that's what this is all about isI want to hear your story.
I want our listeners to be ableto hear your story.

(02:16):
And before we do that, I want togive them kind of a heads up on
what is the best of the wild andkind of what is it you do?
We're not gonna go too far atwell, maybe we'll go far into
it.
We're not gonna go too far atthe moment.
We're gonna kind of announcekind of what it is, and then
we're gonna go back, figure outhow the heck you got from where
you were to where you are now,and then we'll talk about it

(02:36):
some more.
So let's see how that goes.
Will, what is the best, what isthe best of the wild?

SPEAKER_03 (02:41):
So the best of the wild is my own version of a
business model.
Um the best of Kamchatka, andprior to that, Kamcheka
expeditions, where I did what Istill continue to do now, do the

(03:02):
marketing sales, but I'm also onthe ground.
Um, so all the years, 23 summersin Kimcheka, 21 of those, really
working for myself.
I was on the ground guidingevery day, in and out of town by
helicopters, and andrepresenting the place.
So then I uh happened to uh getinto contact with Faiko Wallace

(03:25):
down in the Bahamas, and thathas worked out really great.
Ragged Island is a super wildplace, and um that morphed into
a connection in Brazil, whereI've done 11 trips since 2023,
since 2023, down to Brazil, kindof have that.

(03:46):
That's a little different, butwith the Bahamas, I'm there a
lot of the time.
I'm going back to Camchatka thisyear, and I'll be guiding again
on the ground, meeting people intown.
So so my business model is I Inot what I would consider an
agent, although I do much of thesame things as agents, but I'm

(04:08):
also like when for all the yearsof running the best of
Kamchatka, which was where mythree programs I ran for almost
20 years in Kamchatka, um Icould honestly tell people when
you get off the helicopter,you're gonna be looking me in
the eye at some point duringyour week.

(04:29):
We had three programs and Iwould rotate between the three
programs, but uh, you know, I'mjust totally immersed into
everything I do.
Right, right.
And if I'm not really immersedinto it, I don't have enough
interest in just selling a fishand trip.
I want to have uh it's notreally control.

(04:52):
I want to have the ability tomake great programs, and they
take time sometimes.
So they take some developmentand they take, you know, not
always a hard hand, you know.
You could go into Russia and usea heavy hand back in the early
days, and they would write youoff.
That actually hasn't changed.

SPEAKER_00 (05:13):
But uh Well, I so what I kind of hear you saying
is, and you just correct me ifI'm wrong, but what I hear you
saying started as best ofKamchatka, you say it more like
Kamchatka.

SPEAKER_03 (05:24):
Yeah, Kamchatka.

SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
It's Kamchatka.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (05:29):
I I think the history of that is really tells
the tale.
Um yeah, so even before Best ofKamchatka, I worked at the flag
shop in Reading for three years,and then before that I uh was
partners in a company calledKamchatka Expeditions.

SPEAKER_00 (05:47):
I think we need to share with our listeners what
the heck is Kamchatka, becausethere's people listening to this
right now that have no idea whatyou're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 (05:54):
It's fascinating.
I do.
If you play Risk or asubmariner, you'll know it.
Otherwise, Americans reallyaren't quite aware of what
Kamchatka is.
It's the large peninsula rightabove Japan that hangs off of
eastern Russia.
It's a thousand miles long, hasreally one dirt road.

(06:18):
One quarter of the world'sPacific salmon spawn there every
year.
It gets five species plus asixth species of Pacific salmon,
SEMA cherry salmon, we don't getin the United States.
Uh they're little guys, but umit's really the peninsula is
shaped like a fish.

(06:39):
The uh Kemchatney Row, which isthe fish department for
Kemchatka, their logo isactually the peninsula shaped as
a fish.
And um it's true wilderness,it's really one of the most
spectacularly beautiful places.
So um, you know, everyone alwaysasks me, man, I've been asked a

(07:02):
million times, how in the worlddo you end up over there?

SPEAKER_00 (07:05):
Mm-hmm.
We're gonna we're gonna oh we'regonna share with that, we're
gonna share the answer to thaton this conversation for sure.
And um I also want everybodylike why do people why without
going into why you chose to gothere, but why, you know, what
is interesting about Kamchatkafrom a tourist perspective, why

(07:26):
do people go there?
You've mentioned things aboutfish and fishing, but I'm
curious, is that the main draw,or is there other stuff going on
there, or what's going on?

SPEAKER_03 (07:34):
That's a dynamite question, because um in most of
the world, and certainly in allof Russia, Asia, um, quite a bit
in Europe, they know aboutKamchatka.
It is uh has 29, maybe it's moreactive volcanoes right now.

(07:54):
It's deciduous forests, um, it'sunroded, it's spectacularly
beautiful.
People go there for birding.
It has uh stellar sea eagles,one of the few places in the
world where there's largebreeding populations.
Brown bears, my Russian partnerdoes a brown bear viewing

(08:15):
program at Toyert Lake BaseLodge, um, where you can see as
many brown bears as Brooks Fallsin Alaska, but there's you know
not very many people go there.
And so the the peninsula isactually um growing now.
It's become more of a touristplace than it was when I first

(08:37):
went there 29 years ago.
And um so it's uh uh growing.
They have a brand spanking newinternational domestic airport.
They just opened last year.
Um, and there's quite a bit oftourism there for the fish, for
the bears.

(08:57):
It would be uh a very closething to what you would see in
Alaska, you know, in BristolBay, except more mountainous.
There are many 14,000 footpeaks.
You have Kluchevskaya, which isthe largest uh volcano on the
Asian continent.
It's almost 16,000 feet from sealevel, and it's a uh World

(09:19):
Heritage Site right there aroundKluchevskaya volcano and all the
volcanoes that are right next toit.
And um, you know, it's it's aplace where wilderness is still
available in an incrediblybeautiful setting.
It's green and lush and justspectacular, you know,

(09:41):
aesthetically.

SPEAKER_00 (09:42):
I don't I recognize this could bring up a political
conversation, and that's okay.
We can discuss whatever we wantto discuss.
Yeah, and uh the question that Ithink I most want to ask is why
do you think it is well, I guessfirst I should say from my
perspective, it seems like a lotof people don't know where it
is.
When I worked at Orvis and wehad conversations about it, it
was maybe the really, you know,a serious fly fisherman kind of

(10:06):
maybe knew where it was.
They've heard of it at least.
But why do you think it is thatthe general population in the
US, if you said Kamchatka tothem, they would not even get
the right continent?

SPEAKER_03 (10:18):
So you know, just to touch a little bit on how I feel
about it personally, based onalmost 30 years of representing
Kamchatka programs and beinginvolved, is the the the
Western, but not European.
The Europeans know aboutKamchatka.

(10:38):
But the West meaning the UnitedStates, South America.
I bet South Americans know aboutit, maybe.
But we uh Will Rogers went toRussia in 1926 and came home and
wrote in the Saturday EveningPost and all kinds of places,
and one of the the takeaways hehad was I could write anything

(11:00):
bad I want about Russia, and allAmerica will believe it.
Oh yeah, and you know, I I'm Ihave always been well initially
and for many years I was verysad about that.
I've come to accept it, it'sjust the way it is.
You know, it is a spectacularplace in the world and has been

(11:21):
voted one of the most beautifulplaces in the world, one of the
lots of travelers who do bigtravel programs will know about
Kamchatka.
It's it's well known insideinternational wilderness travel
for sure.

SPEAKER_00 (11:40):
Okay.
All right.
And um yeah, so I I get that.
And I'm just curious if you hadto guess, and I it's probably
not a fair question to ask, butI'm just curious, like well what
you would guess.
What if you look at all of thetravelers from North America

(12:00):
traveling to Kamchatka over thecourse of a year?
I guess the first question Ishould ask is do you have any
idea what number that is?
Well, yeah, there's let's let'sgo back five years, six years.
Okay, so and then we'll discussthe changes.
But uh I'm curious like how manypeople go and what percentage of
them are going for fishing?

(12:21):
Is that like a big chunk of it?
From North America, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (12:25):
We we we there there's certainly people who go
there for birding from the US,volcanologists, uh people hiking
and stuff, but it was a smallfraction of the number of people
that were coming from Europe andAsia to Kamchatka or from North
America.
Um, so for many years there wasa flight from Anchorage to

(12:49):
Petropavlovsk, which is prettyshort, and that would be 80%
fishermen, 5% hunters, 5%travelers, maybe maybe 70%
fishermen.
There would be Russians goingback and forth, and but much
most of the people from NorthAmerica throughout the opening

(13:11):
of Kamchatka, the the majorityhigh percentage would have been
outdoorsmen, hunters in thefall, in the spring, and then in
the summer fishermen.
And we used to, you know, therethere would be a hundred
fishermen going over there, umbeing spread out over a thousand
miles.
And so that was you know one ofthe things that was fascinating

(13:34):
because you could go all summernot see anyone but the people
that are with you and on yourriver and your guests, and it's
much the same now, certainly theway we're gonna operate.
Um the the day the Ukraineconflict broke out, I had 163
deposited customers for fourfull programs.

(13:56):
And um, you know, now it'schanged.
There's no longer a flight fromAnchorage.
I don't know, you know, that's awhole podcast in itself.
And so we're gonna in 207 wewent through Korea to
Vladivostok to Petropavlovsk.
We're gonna go uh Beijing Petroor Vladivostok Petro this year,

(14:17):
but we we took um you know thethe um charter flight was always
maybe, maybe not, maybe, maybenot in 2006 and 2006 and seven,
they didn't do it.
And I took 157 people throughSeoul Korea.

(14:38):
And you know, that was sort of aforce of it was you know, we had
a lot of people booked when theflight canceled, and so you
know, the the way I'm running itnow, I'm taking four people a
week.
That's it.
It's a great idea.
We used to take 18 for allsummer long.

SPEAKER_00 (14:57):
Yeah, because I I think um I want to make sure we
get back into the history ofeven pre-Kamchatka for you, but
before we do that, this is theperfect opportunity to discuss a
little bit more about what'sgoing on because I suspect a lot
of people listening to this arelike, I didn't, I don't even, I
didn't even think you could goto Russia, or why would I go to
Russia?

(15:17):
Or you know, and some people arejust more open to doing things
than other people, but but likeI have it kind of in my mind
that I can't really go to Russiaright now, and I'm very
open-minded.
Yeah, I suspect so.
So tell us about that.
What do you want people to knowabout going to Russia, what that
might be like in extreme uheastern Russia, and uh yeah,

(15:39):
just what do you want them toknow?

SPEAKER_03 (15:41):
Well, I so I would say that uh there's never been a
shutdown of Americans going intoRussia.
The visa process is exactly thesame.
I just did mine last week, andI'm using Red Star Travel out of
Seattle, who I've used since2004, since the beginning of the

(16:02):
Basta Kemchatka.
And um they basically walk yourvisa through.
We get an invitation.
So um, you know, we'll get intothis a little bit differently
maybe later, but I have had thesame Russian partner since 1999.
And he has huge concessions allover Kamchatka, and and so for

(16:27):
us, uh for him and I andSvetlana Halavana, our manager
since then, nothing's different.
It's exactly the same.
The flight path through Beijingto Vladivostok to Petro is
better than what the huntershave been going.
American North American huntershave been going in droves for

(16:48):
the past two years, and againwe'll go this year.
Um and um in the fall, myRussian partner has a uh sheep
hunting group from North Americacoming in early August, and then
he has moose hunters coming inNovember and December.
And so you said that they weregoing through the Middle East,

(17:11):
which is crazy.
So you you go um to Istanbul orDubai and then the Moscow and
then the Petro.
So it's three really longflights, crazy.
But last year, China and Russiaopened up visa-free travel.
And so from Beijing toVladivostok and Beijing to

(17:31):
Habarovsk, there are now lots ofconnecting flights.
Because those are really, youknow, growing commercial areas
that the Chinese are are areflooding into now with visa-free
travel and Kamchatka as well.
Um, and there's daily flightsbetween Kemcheka and Vlad and

(17:52):
Kamchatka and Habarovsk.
So there's lots of connections.

SPEAKER_00 (17:55):
It's actually Yeah, I was gonna ask, what's the
because obviously Anchoragedirect sounds pretty great, but
Anchorage is not super close tomost people that live in the US.
Right, right, right.
So what's the difference likewhat it was going through
Anchorage to what it is nowgoing through Beijing?
Are we talking it's twice ascomplicated, twice as long?

(18:17):
What's help me get my headaround that?

SPEAKER_03 (18:19):
Probably uh 25% more flying time.
Okay, a little bit morejockeying it, waiting in the
Vladivostok airport for the nextflight to go to Petro early in
the morning.
And you know, but overall, ifyou're coming from New York,
it's only a few hours more.

unknown (18:42):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (18:42):
Okay, if you were going to Anchorage, your New
York Anchorage is five, sixhours.
You know, four and a half, fivehours to Petro.
So yeah, I guess it's probably30% more flying time.

SPEAKER_00 (18:55):
Okay.
But I heard you and I heard yousay, in a sense, obviously the
flight routing has changed, butI kind of heard you say not
really much else has changed,but I also heard you say you're
only running four guests insteadof 16.
So help me understand is that ais that a demand issue?
Is that a an issue demand issue?

SPEAKER_03 (19:18):
Okay, all right.
And and that's created by yourfor your question about I I
didn't think we could go there.
You know, I get this all thetime, and it's absolutely
commonplace for me to hear, Ididn't think you could go to
Russia, nothing's changed, andso except the routing.
So um the the benefit of goingthis route actually is that you

(19:44):
don't have to miss if if we hadsomething that would cause
trouble with us with the routefrom Anchorage to Petro and
Petro to Anchorage was whenyou're coming out of the
wilderness camps, if you didn'tmake that Monday night 8 30 p.m.
flight, you didn't you had to gohome the long way anyway and buy
a real expensive ticket.

(20:06):
Yeah, and had the sameinconvenience.
Um, so you know, I forget whereyou asked me a couple questions.

SPEAKER_00 (20:14):
I'm trying to Well, it was it was mostly just about
the what took you from 16anglers to four anglers.

SPEAKER_03 (20:22):
Yeah, so so when we had flights, regular flights
from Anchorage, we I had theAzraniah River Jetboat Lodge,
where we took eight people aweek, and we had two-year river
float, which we did for 21summers, where we took six
people a week, and then we hadthe flyout rainbows from above

(20:43):
out of two-year base lodge,where we took four or eight
people a week.
In 2017, 18 and 19, we hadmultiple weeks with two
helicopters operating every daywith eight anglers.
So, you know, we would takeanywhere from 18 to 20 to 22
people a week for many, manyyears, but they're all located

(21:05):
quite a bit of quite far fromeach other.
So the Hausernaya is up north,and it would take for us to open
the doors on that, it would takethree or four full MI-8
helicopter loads of equipment,motors, boats, lumber, crazy
amounts of stuff.
And you know, to turn the keyon, you could only really do

(21:29):
that if you had 10 weeks ofeight anglers, eighty people.
It just doesn't pencil outanyway that way.
The float trip, huh?
Fascinatingly enough, um, Ialways ran that from a business
standpoint.
It was my loss leader.
Um, it was a great fishery.

(21:49):
Some years it was crazy great,some years it was really good,
but you know, not crazy great.
And um, but we did that becausemy competitors were doing lots
of float trips, and we had anice situation at the two-year
river, which comes out of twoyurt lake, um, which means we're
always clear, pretty dependablefishery.

(22:12):
And my Russian partner builtfive sets of cabins along the
river, and you'd float everynight between a set of
wood-building cabins, which isgreat because the bears there.
And and so um that just thatalso doesn't pencil out.
You'd have to have, you know,and the people who are gonna

(22:34):
travel to do a float trip areprobably not gonna put in the
effort to go to China and thento Vlad and then to Petro at a
lower price because we'd have tofloat that's that's that market.
It just doesn't make sense tospend my energy r selling that
kind of trip when it does, youknow, you can emulate that in a

(22:59):
million places in Alaska,Montana, Wyoming, uh I get it.

SPEAKER_00 (23:06):
I get it.
Especially with especially withthe mindset stuff and people's
concerns about Russia's like,hey, we just go do a float trip,
yeah, in Montana or whatever,right?
I mean it's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (23:15):
So for six summers out of two-year base launch,
where my Russian partner has a49-year federal lease, we ran
Rainbows from Above where wekeep a helicopter and a mechanic
and a pilot at the lodge, myselfand four anglers, and this year
it'll be Yeor Holavana as theRussian guide.

(23:37):
And we fly out every day todifferent rivers.
That uh there's about 15 that wecan access, seven on the west
coast, eight on the east coast.
They're all great fly fishing,rainbow trout fisheries.
They're spectacular.
And so that that one pencils outbecause that lodge is in

(23:58):
operation in the spring forspring bear hunting, in the
summer for in July for springbear viewing, and we're gonna
use it in August and earlySeptember for flying out every
day.
And that's what we did for manysix summers.
And um, you know, we're gonnatake about nine groups a summer,
most of them.

SPEAKER_00 (24:19):
I'm gonna try and I'm gonna try and ask you the
question that I think somepeople might be wondering as
they listen to this.
Sure.
It's kind of pointed, butsometimes when something like
world events happen and peoplequit going or fewer people go,
that some people listen to thatand say, you know what, let's

(24:39):
just wait till things settleout.
It sounds like they've it itsounds like they've cut back on
services, they're not doing thisstuff, so we'll just wait until
things get back to normal.
Other people say, Oh, maybe thisis an opportunity to this is an
opportunity to uh to go have anexperience that maybe maybe

(25:02):
fewer anglers, less pressure.
Uh I don't I don't want yeah,yeah, exactly.
Right?
So it's like, wow, we're thewe're literally the only ones
there.
And maybe maybe because uhresources have been consolidated
a little bit, it might actuallyprovide a better opportunity.
I don't know.
What are your thoughts?
Like, what do you tell peoplethat are trying to decide, do I
wait or do I take advantage ofit and go now?

SPEAKER_03 (25:23):
So, you know, even before all this mess started,
everyone was always terrifiedabout the helicopters.
And so, you know, when you saythings consolidate or retrench
immediately, I bet people think,oh gosh.
So Kamchatka lives and breatheson helicopters.

(25:46):
Uh Kamchatka Avellini uh broughtin or brought in 20 MI eights
and two MI2s back in 2012 toservice the gas well heads that
are on the coast and on themainland of the western, south,
excuse me, west centralKamchatka.

(26:08):
And uh so they're busy all thetime, they do lots of hella
skiing in the wintertime.
There's inside, I forget if it'sfive or seven ski resorts
downhill, ski resorts insidePetropavlovsk, the city proper.
Oh wow.
Yeah, they've had a lot ofOlympic skiers come out of
Kamchatka, and um so uh as anopportunity, one of the things

(26:36):
that's fascinating is the way weas Westerners certainly my I cut
my teeth guiding in Alaska, so Isaw how that operates.
Where we're very efficient, wefind the fisheries that fish
great at the right times andfigure out the access that's

(26:56):
easiest for the anglers that youcan take, get all the flies, you
know exactly how to catch themreally, really good, and then
you know, run a program based onvery much the pattern of how we
did it at the flyout lodges,Alaska, from you know, all the
great lodges, enchanted lake,Iliaska, all the guys who did it

(27:21):
for have been doing it for 40years that have it down to a
science.
I just transflattened that tothis program.
And um, it's fascinating becausewhen I look in a map of
Kemchatka, I don't think thatthere's another spot that could
be better for a full flyoutprogram than two-year lake.
So I think it's impossible.

(27:42):
And so that gave us anopportunity during those six
summers to go do all thosethings, figure out the
fisheries, figure outeverything.
But you're it's very unlikelythat you would find a group of
four uh Russians or four.

(28:03):
Certainly, I don't think theChinese people would buy because
I've talked to them about whatit costs to do that
helicoptering every day.
And you know, they do it'sbeyond the price point of what
most of them, except the verywealthy, would spend.
So these fisheries that wefigured out over those six

(28:23):
summers, and I've been fishingup in that area since 2000.
So many, many years up north,north central Kamchatka, and uh
that allowed my GPS to be reallyfull of spots that are some of
the most spectacular spots onplanet Earth to go fishing for

(28:44):
trout, char, grayling.
We don't really on this program,we don't fish for salmon, but we
used to fish for salmon a lot atthe Osronaya jet boat program.
So what what I'm saying is youjust won't no one will have been
to these places because they arenot going to run this kind of
it's a I would call it anAmerican-style flyout program.

SPEAKER_00 (29:08):
Okay.
And you you mentioned some yousaid something about everybody
thinks about, I didn't, I don'tknow if you use the word
worries, so I don't want to usethe word worry, but about the
helicopters, because I knowenough about this, uh not
anything close to what you know,but I know that um when I was
working at Orvis and we were,you know, having conversations
with people about that, we'dhear say things about the

(29:31):
helicopters.

SPEAKER_03 (29:31):
Yeah, all the time, man.

SPEAKER_00 (29:32):
You know, it's like if the helicopter's not, you
know, our guide told us if thehelicopter's not spraying oil,
then that's when you gottaworry.
You know, it's just stuff likethat.

SPEAKER_03 (29:41):
And so I think I I think uh I can answer this
really well.
In when I first went there in1997, Russia was a broken
country.
They were down and out, andthat's when a lot of these
magazine articles about flyfishing came out, about

(30:05):
Kamchatka, and they lookedterrible.
They were still painted theSoviet orange and blue uh
maintenance back in '97, '98.
I think it was reasonablyquestionable.
They still so the thing is,though, they they go by
international standards, andRussia has follows the exact

(30:26):
same international standardsthat we do in the United States.
For helicopters, they might dosome rebuild things different,
but everything else is up to auh international standard that
they adhere to.
And so over like when Kamchatskaum Avia came in and brought all

(30:50):
those helicopters, they're allnow painted with you know scenes
of wolves and bears, they'respectacular looking.
They're all like front frontierairlines or something, right?
Oh, they look better thanFrontier Airlines, they're
spectacular.
I have pictures of them on mywebsite or uh on Facebook and
different things, and they'rejust spectacular.

(31:10):
And and so, like we we with theflyout program, we had Dima and
Vologia, and Vologia has rightnow about 37 years of flying on
Kamchatka, and I call him theaccountant because he is just
all straightforward, no monkeybusiness, doesn't drink.

(31:34):
I think I've seen him have aglass of red wine, maybe one
time.
And every day it's the same.
He'll always land in a blueberrypatch if there's one by the
river because he picksblueberries and puts them in the
big gallon jars while we're outfishing.
Um the helicopter stays with us.

(31:54):
Uh-huh.
And back at the lodge, the uhthe company has one of their top
mechanics spends the wholeseason at the lodge.
And he checks that thing twice aday.
And you know, all the theRussian ones are uh MI2s, MI8s
are all twin-engine turbines,and so they can land on one

(32:16):
engine.
I've never had it happen, knockon wood, but the fact of the
matter is they they have reallyhigh standards, and the guys
flying me, Dima had 18,000 hoursin 2019, and he's still flying
every day for that company.

SPEAKER_00 (32:34):
I think I think somebody wants me to ask this.
You kind of touched on it, whichI'm happy you did.
You said I've never been in ahelicopter that had to land on
one engine.
That's good.
I think we need to take thequestion a little further
because you've spent a lot oftime there.
Um, and even with perfecthelicopters, you know, we see
helicopters crash in New YorkCity or Los Angeles, or you

(32:56):
know, things it's it's aviation,so we got to be real about that.
But have you had thoseexperiences?
Do you have stories of that?
Or so I'm not asking you toshare horror stories, but I'm
just I just want to be real.

SPEAKER_03 (33:09):
A really sad story that is really, you know, as
much the history of the aviationin Alaska as it is in Kamchatka
on August 23rd, 2003.
Um Dima uh no, no, let me uhI'll get their names in a

(33:30):
second.
Um three helicopter pilots I hadflown with the day before went
into Petropavlovsk and they weretaking the governor of Sokolin
Island and his entire entourageback to Who's Knows Sokolin by
MI8 helicopter?
Andre Bogdan and Eager.

(33:51):
And Andre, the pilot, had 29years on Kemchakka flying.
Bogdan, his co-pilot, had six.
Eager had 30 years as a mechanicbecause those big helicopters
have two pilots and a mechanic.

SPEAKER_02 (34:08):
Yeah, charge of that bird.

SPEAKER_03 (34:11):
And they were flying um would have been southwest
towards Sakhalin, and thegovernor got into the cockpit
and said, I want to go look atApollo volcano, and it's a
volcano on the west coast ofKamchatka.
They were flying west.
I want to go look at it.

(34:33):
And it was bad weather.
I was up at two-year base lodge.
I remember it was terribleweather.
And Andre, the head pilot, said,I'm not doing it.
And the governor of SakhalinIsland said, You're gonna do
what I tell you.
I'm the governor, I'm a bigmonkey muck guy.
And Andre said, I'm gonnarelinquish control to my

(34:55):
co-pilot.
And Baghdan got into zero-zeroweather and crashed the
helicopter and everyone died.
Wow, yeah.
Yeah.
And Putin sent in a specialenvoy, and Heliterka was the
name of that helicopter company,and we had used them a lot over
the years, and they were hadjust won the Wings of Russia the

(35:18):
year before, which was the awardfor the safety standards in all
of Russia.
And pilot error being pushed bysomebody through weather.
And that's you know, but I I II've I I had a friend in in uh
hit uh top of a mountain inKenai three years after that,

(35:40):
coming back, or excuse me, umnot Kenai, they were coming back
from Kotzebue moose hunting, andthey were going through a pass
and they other plane with themturned around and they couldn't
make the turn, and they but theyhad risked going, knowing the

(36:00):
weather could be bad, andthey've and it was.
And so But that was in Alaska,right?
That was in Alaska, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (36:07):
So so that's kind of you know I don't know if I yeah,
sh I don't want to say shithappens, like oh, well, no big
deal, because it is a big deal,but it's um you know, I've also
been around aviation a long timeand I lived in Alaska, and you
know, you heard stories ofthings happening there, so um so
yeah, I I appreciate just wantto kind of chat about the

(36:27):
helicopters because I've heardpeople say, you know, say things
key is the guys are serious,it's professional, it's a big
company, they've they do lots ofother things besides working
with us.

SPEAKER_03 (36:41):
We're a little chump change for them, all their
business out to the well heads,all the they have the a
beautiful heliport they builtback in like 2014 in
Petropavlovsk, beautiful,spectacular heliport, and um
they do lots of tourism.
I mean, in the scope of arearight around Petro, say 100

(37:06):
miles, there's a lot of tourism.
We are 350 miles away fromPetropavlovsk.

SPEAKER_00 (37:13):
Could could they use float planes there like they do
in Alaska?
Or what's what's the difference?

SPEAKER_03 (37:19):
You could you you certainly could, but it limits
trout fishing.
When you have the ability toland spot on a spot that you
know is loaded with giant trout,or you have to land two miles
away and do an hour and a halfbushwhack to it.

(37:40):
Right.
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
You know, so you can, butthere's man, it would be super
limiting compared to ahelicopter.

SPEAKER_00 (37:47):
Yeah, and I get that.
I've spent some time in NewZealand doing the helifishing
there, and it's it's amazing, orthey can just drop you right
next to the hole, and you can'teven believe the fish are still
there.

SPEAKER_02 (37:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (37:59):
But yeah, all right.
And I told you I'm messing withvideo, and I just looked at a
video right before we we startedchatting here of uh uh guys on
the levee or river.
We landed, and literally theskids are or the wheels are in
the water, and the one guy getsout and catches a two-foot, you
know, a two-foot rainbow drop,right underneath the rotors,

(38:24):
basically.
And so it's really, you know,back to the opportunity.
Uh I'm super excited.
I I don't have nearly as manypeople as I was hoping I was
gonna get this year, but it'sokay.
I'm going back anyway.
Um, and it's gonna be superexciting to set foot on those
rivers that I bet you some ofthem no one's fished, zero

(38:45):
people since we were there.

SPEAKER_00 (38:47):
So that's the obvious advantage to going to a
place where the fishing pressurehas been reduced dramatically.
I you know, I know enough aboutfishing travel to know that.
Um, are there any other benefitsthat maybe are not as obvious as
far as having smaller groupsizes or uh financial benefits,
or is it actually more expensiveright now, or what what would

(39:09):
you like to share?

SPEAKER_03 (39:11):
So I I the other benefits like Svetlana is gonna
cook and ran our Oz camp for 16summers.
She's an English teacher, she'sbeen to the U.S.
like 27 times.
Okay, and she but she workedexclusively with American

(39:31):
hunters and fishermen since1995.
And so she's gonna get some workagain, which is great.
Her son, I've known since he was11, is became my right-hand man
there, speaks perfect English,is a crazy fly fisherman.

(39:51):
He grew up as a kid being acamphand at our float trip for
years and years and years.
I remember seeing him dobackflips off the outhouses and
stuff.
I'm like, you're crazy.
He was a competitivesnowboarder, and and um so um,
you know, they're gonna be superexcited.

(40:13):
It's just gonna be VictorRebrikoff, my partner since '99,
he's gonna be super excited too.
And so it's just gonna be likeperson.

SPEAKER_00 (40:23):
Well, I maybe I'm pointing out obvious, and I but
what I hear you saying, and Ican relate to this big time.
If you take because I've workedwith a lot of fishing guides and
I managed a fishing lodge, andsometimes they just fall into a
routine, sometimes they getburned out, sometimes they get
grumpy because they've beenworking for, you know, three

(40:47):
months straight or some places,you know, where they have
year-round fishing, and theyjust fall into this routine.
It's like, okay, just anotherguest, another guest, another,
another rich guy from thestates, whatever.
Uh, and I'm not saying theyshould be like that.
I'm not endorsing that.
I'm not saying that I'm notsaying that most of them are
like that, but you know, I wasalso working pretty damn hard at

(41:07):
the lodge.
And after, you know, six orseven months of meeting a new
group of guests every Saturday,sometimes there's a little
burnout.
But when you take that away,like you said, they're gonna be
excited to see you.
You're going into a place wherethese people are super excited
to have you there, they'reenthusiastic, they've they've
got an opportunity to make somemoney, and they're probably
gonna go above and beyond as faras you know, then than if if you

(41:31):
hit them after three months ofyou know, dealing with you know
10 clients a week for six monthsor well, three months, whatever
it is.

SPEAKER_03 (41:37):
But yeah, it's fascinating because Fatlana and
I have talked about how much,you know, when you're in the
throes of the really greattimes.
I mean, we she she had for 16years, would have 10 weeks of
eight fishermen at her under hercare every week, right?
And she loved it, man.
I'll put her her food and I'llput her food against any lodge

(42:01):
in the world.
Any lodge.
No one's ever gonna beat it.
It's impossible.

SPEAKER_00 (42:06):
We gotta take we gotta take a moment.
Maybe you're going here, but Iwant to make sure we cover this
because I suspect that'ssomething else people are
wishing I would ask is tell usmore about the food.
She's a great cook, but what isRussian food?
What do they what do these guyseat when they go fishing in
Kinchako or gals?

SPEAKER_03 (42:22):
Well, so breakfast is all pretty normal.
You know, you have oatmeal,eggs, bacon, okay, sausage.
They also make blini, which isbasically their version of a
crepe, and there'll be a pileevery single day, freshly cooked
that morning, every day.

(42:42):
And Dave Vinez, who went withus, I don't know, three times to
the flyout, a couple times tothe um jet boat program, swears
the best crepes he's ever hadare on or Svetlana's on
Kamchatka, and he was born andraised in Paris.
Oh, and knows a little aboutcrepes.

(43:03):
He knows something about that.
He's he's out of it.
And and you know, then lunch,you know, we do the standard
sandwich, but she makes thesecrazy sandwiches that are off
the charts.
And it's the cool thing aboutthe helicopter program is no one
has to carry the sandwiches oranything.
It's in the helicopter.
They come down to find us forlunch and we spread out a big
lunch.
It's awesome.

(43:24):
And then dinner, she'll have allkinds of every meal will have a
soup handmade from scratch,spectacular borsche, of course,
but all kinds of other soups,and then she'll have a big
family style table set out withthree or four different salads,

(43:47):
you know, some unique thingsfrom Kazakhstan, and it'll be
very international.
Okay, and but it won't be crazyspicy and uh almost but all
these sides, all these salads,and then there'll be pork chops
on the grill that'll be likecool, you know, purge.

(44:09):
So it's not it's not justforced, not just forced and and
stewed cabbage.
Oh no, there'll be so much food.
It was one of the jokes becausethe dogs always get fat when the
American fishermen can't cookmore bites at lana because
there's always a lot left over,right?
And so yeah, she really puts outa incredibly international

(44:34):
spread, plof, all kinds of, youknow, the favorites of the
Russian people, and she alsomakes spaghetti once a week,
right?
That is like off the charts, andand there's so much food you you
you you have a hard time, youknow, pacing yourself.

(44:55):
And and dinners in Russia, theyslow us down, right?
They could be a couple hourslong, easy.
Um, you know, take your time,not Although if you're working
really hard, um the the coolthing about um two-year base
lodge, one of the cool reallycool things is a hundred meters

(45:15):
from the guest cabin there's ahot spring.
So that's the only place wherewe mean you know at the Oz we
used to have campfires afterdinner, so sometimes they would
shorten them up a little bit tohave campfires, but uh everyone
goes in a hot spring.
A lot of times they'll do itbefore dinner.
Um dinners can be just uh hootand annie.

(45:39):
It's it's a it's it's reallygreat.
And and you know, there's fouris a small group.
It's small, it's a big group.
Um but there's enough otherpeople around.
Dennis will be there, who's acamp camp hand uh mechanic,
carpenter who's has that placespotless, and so you know it's

(46:02):
it's uh uh set in one of themost beautiful valleys, you're
right up in the mountainsalmost.
And um so that's very cool.

SPEAKER_00 (46:12):
Is it and I is it do you guys drink anything other
than vodka?

SPEAKER_03 (46:18):
Oh, yeah.
So just in case that's importantto anybody listening.
I think Russians brew some ofthe best beer on the planet.
Kemchatka beer is made inPetropavlovsk.
Again, back to um knowing aboutKemchatka.
Worldwide, Kemchatka's famousfor its pure water, and so like

(46:40):
Kemchatka number one beer, whichis owned by my partner's friend,
um, is spectacular.
And we keep it in a hot springright behind the guests or the
hot spring, the cold spring.
Yeah, I was gonna say there's acreek that runs right behind the
guest cabins.

SPEAKER_00 (47:00):
But here, can you can you sit can you sit in the
hot spring and reach over intothe cold spring to grab the
beer?
That's what would be reallycool.
You guys you guys need toreroute the creek a little bit,
maybe.
Yeah, it'd have to go uphill toget put.
So we're at this point in theconversation.
We're gonna definitely discusssome of the other things you do,
but I think this is the point inthe conversation where I said I

(47:22):
say, okay, well, you're sittingin the hot spring drinking uh
what was it, one beer, uhKamchatka one?

SPEAKER_03 (47:28):
Kamchatka number one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (47:29):
Kamchatka number one, y'all are sitting around
drinking a beer, and this andthen the questions start that we
alluded to earlier.
Will, how the heck did you getinto this?
How the heck did you end up herewith us right now?
So I want to take advantage ofthis moment because we're
talking about enjoying a beersitting in the hot spring.
Tell me, let's go and let's notjust go back to your first job

(47:52):
in the fishing business.
What were you doing when youwere a kid?
What did you want to do when yougrow up, grew up, that type of
thing?

SPEAKER_03 (47:57):
So I was a crazy fisherman since a young, young
age, and my folks had a lakehouse in southwest Michigan on
Cory Lake outside Three Rivers,Michigan.
Beautiful glacial moraine lake.
And my dad's best friend, JarvisPetticord, um, had been a camper
there in like 1905 at CampEberhard.

(48:22):
It's a YMCA camp, and most ofthat lake is still a YMCA camp,
and it's crystal clear.
I grew up snorkeling andfishing.
I mean, just boats.
My dad was a boat guy.
We had I had my first outboardmotor and boat when I was nine
years old given to me.
Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 (48:42):
This is all starting to make sense.

SPEAKER_03 (48:44):
You take care of it.
Yeah, and so we we always hadwere around boats skiing, you
know, really um a littlespoiled, but really into boats.
And I was always I really lovedcanoes, and I would put it in
the St.
Joe River and go to the craziestplaces where other guys wouldn't
go.

(49:04):
And you know, then my I got outof college and my my dad's
friend Jarvis said, What theheck what the heck are you gonna
do with your life now?
Why don't you go be you're socrazy about fishing, go fish for
a living?

SPEAKER_00 (49:16):
And so before we before we go before we go there,
yeah.
So your dad gave you a boat andan outboard when you were nine,
and kind of gave you the licenseto just either go drown, kill
yourself, do whatever.
You had a lot of license.
Was your mom around at this inthis was she part of this
picture?
Was she supportive?
What was what was I'm alwayscurious?

SPEAKER_03 (49:38):
She did I was out of the house.

SPEAKER_00 (49:46):
Back in the day, you're nine here, take a boat
and a motor, go go get out, andnow you now you're 29.

SPEAKER_03 (49:53):
You would be arrested for what they did.

SPEAKER_00 (49:56):
And now when your kid hits 29, you're like, Well,
you you can stay here.
Why don't you stay here, savemoney?
And and I'm not knocking it, I Iget I'm not knocking anybody's
choices, but no, I'm not either.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (50:07):
So we were siblings, you know, free range kids.
There were no telephones, andyou know, my honestly, my dad
was just like, just go dowhatever you want, go do it.
He he coined that phrase waybefore Nike.
Just do it, and you know, so wewere we were pretty good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (50:27):
Yeah, now what about what about siblings?

SPEAKER_03 (50:30):
Did you have siblings?
I have an older brother whopassed away last year from
cancer.

SPEAKER_00 (50:37):
Okay, but he survived for a long time.

SPEAKER_03 (50:40):
I have a younger sister who's six years younger
than me.
She's and we're very, veryclose.
She's uh lives in Albany.

SPEAKER_00 (50:48):
That's the only problem.
Yeah.
We're all of you.
I presumably uh you were exposedto probably the same things.
Did they take grasp of it thesame way you did?

SPEAKER_03 (51:00):
Well, so I said we were spoiled, so my dad said
when we were my it was like my12th birthday or something, he
said, you can either get a horseor a motorcycle.
And my brother got a horse, andthat was kind of his thing.
He was slower speed.
I got a KX80 dirt bike.
Okay.

(51:20):
And you know, that was all shewrote with when I yeah, it was
always a little bit of I likemotors, I like driving boat fast
boats, you know.
Uh we I had a hydrostreamvandal, which is a little
fiberglass boat 14 feet longthat goes 70 miles an hour.
I think my dad was trying tokill me.

SPEAKER_00 (51:43):
I'm starting to wonder, like, was he just wanted
to see his kid have everything.
If I if I can get rid of thesethree kids, I can go be a
fishing.
Whatever I want.

SPEAKER_03 (51:53):
Yeah, yeah.
No, he just really he was agadget guy, he loved things like
that.
So he he embraced it all.
I mean, he was really, really,really a special guy.
And um, so his friend told me togo get a job.
So I got a grade sportingjournal and wrote resumes to 20
fishing lodges in Alaska.

(52:15):
Uh-huh.
And I was living in college,Fort Collins, Colorado, after
college.
Uh, grew up in Indiana.

SPEAKER_00 (52:22):
And I had more did you, I'm curious, what did you
study in school?
You mentioned after college.

SPEAKER_03 (52:28):
It's a pre-law degree.

SPEAKER_00 (52:29):
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
Why did you choose that?
Do you remember why you chosenumber one?
Do you remember why you chosethat?

SPEAKER_03 (52:37):
I wanted to go to law school.

SPEAKER_00 (52:39):
So the guy with the the nine-year-old with the the
boat and the motor and themotorcycle was sitting around
thinking, man, I want to be alawyer when I grow up.

SPEAKER_03 (52:47):
Is that what I love books?
I was a huge reader.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
I'm hearing it right.
Yeah.
I I was very much into historyand and anti-war.

unknown (53:03):
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (53:03):
Very, you know, sort of politically leaning a little
bit, but I also wanted to makesome money.

SPEAKER_00 (53:11):
But you know, that's a not that's really when it
you've given up on that dream,haven't you?
Of making money.
Just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 (53:19):
She Jarvis said that I go to um uh do an interview
with Dave Eggdorf, who ownedWestern Alaska Sport Fishing,
and uh he hired me.

SPEAKER_00 (53:31):
Was this was this after you finished school or
before school?

SPEAKER_03 (53:36):
I was out of school a couple years.

SPEAKER_00 (53:38):
So you finished school, did you uh were you
working for a while?
I just want to fill in the thelittle gap between I'm gonna be
a lawyer.
I graduated school.
What did you do before you?

SPEAKER_03 (53:49):
I went and worked in a law firm in Texas for about
three months.
And I said, there's no way Iwant to be involved with this
business.
Okay, yeah.
I think that's an important stepto discuss.
My lifelong to this day, bestfriend owns a third generation
Ford dealer in Hobart, Indiana,hearing Ford, and I had messed

(54:13):
around selling cars and stuffwith him, and he's like, come
back.
And so I was, you know, doingthat, and that's when I saw
Jarvis and and I had moved backto Colorado, and I was just kind
of floating around fishing andworking at car dealerships and
fishing.
I mean, I fished, I bought adrift boat, um, fished all over

(54:37):
Wyoming and Colorado in my driftboat and Utah, and uh that's
when Jarvis said go get a job,and so I did and went to work
for Dave Eggdorf and I loved it,lost my mind.
The Upper Nushkak is one of theprettiest places on planet
Earth, and really just wasgonna, you know, that was where

(54:58):
I was going.

SPEAKER_00 (54:59):
But did he hire you as a guide, or did you do the
whole like I'll do anything?
I just want to be in the camp, Iwant to learn, but he you got
you went straight in as a guide.

SPEAKER_03 (55:08):
My guide training was they drove me upriver once,
downriver once, and there was abig eagle's nest downriver, and
that's where my first day ofguiding was, my second time
driving down there to start atthe Eagle's Nest with repeat
clients who'd been there acouple times.

(55:30):
It was wild.
I love it.
I love it.
And it was out of control, andyou know, that just kind of how
he ran it.
And he, you know, well, part ofthe reason why Dave had trouble
keeping guides, I think, off andon over the years, was because
you work so stinking hard, man.
Yeah, I think that's as hard asI you can imagine a human

(55:51):
working, setting up those camps.
We set up both camps, rebuildcamps, chopping down trees for
firewood.
It was over the top hard work.
And you know, a lot of guysdon't want to do that for very
long.
And then so they come through acouple years, and so but I ate
it up.
I loved it.

SPEAKER_00 (56:10):
Do you do you remember that first?
Uh it sounds like you rememberit.
You said you know you drove downto the to where the eagle's nest
was.
Do you remember anything aboutyour time with the clients?
Like, did did you suspect theyknew I remember it perfectly.
I I bet you do, because Iremember my first guide trip.
I remember every minute of thefirst guide trip I did.
It was also the first guide tripI'd ever been on because I'd

(56:31):
never been with a guide.
Neither was the guide.
Yeah, so I I'm relating to this.
All right.
So did your clients know that itwas your first day?

SPEAKER_03 (56:38):
Jed Garthway was one of the clients.
And Jed had actually he I endedup guiding man Kem Cheka in '97.
He was a big pain in the butt,and he just thought he knew
everything.
And it was him, and I can'tremember the guy with him, but
he was a doctor and very tender,nice guy.

(57:02):
Remember, he was just a reallynice guy and Jed.
And they had been there the yearbefore, and that would have been
93, and that was a super lowwater year with heat, and the
king salmon on the upperNushigak there, you you're
basically fishing the numbers ofrainbow trout around spawning

(57:23):
king salmon.
So in 9093, it was hot, lowwater.
The king's salmon startedspawning right away.
All the rainbows came in, it wasall when they were there.
The year I the day, my firstday, water's really high, which
means hard.

SPEAKER_00 (57:38):
What I hear you saying, and I don't know that
river, but I I think I hear yousaying the fishing was really
good and easy the year before.

SPEAKER_03 (57:45):
Yeah, yeah.
It tells me, I'll tell you whereto go.
Yep.
Uh-huh.
And I'm like, and he was withPaul the year before, who had
been there a couple years, a fewyears, good fisherman, and I had
heard about him.
And I'll tell you where to go.
And all morning we fished thespots, and I could see there's

(58:07):
not going to be any fish there.
It's the middle of there lastyear, and at lunchtime I said,
All right, guys, I'm guiding therest of the day.
And I put them on big holes bythe staging kings where the
rainbow schools were hangingout, and we had a great day.
And I learned just such a hugelesson that day, you know, that

(58:29):
you have to, you know, if you'rethe captain of the boat, you
have to take control, but alsoknow what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 (58:36):
Know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 (58:38):
That's the thing.
If you take control and getcontrol, and then it doesn't
work out.
That can especially if you'regonna be with them, especially
if you're gonna be with them therest of the week.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (58:49):
But luckily, I you know, I got lucky, maybe, but I
was a fisherman.
I knew I had been there for acouple weeks.
I kind of knew what was goingon.

SPEAKER_00 (58:57):
So I remember on the I remember on the Yellowstone,
my my you know, when I first gotstarted, guys would be like,
Well, we fished here last year,you know, and we used these big
salmon flies, and we caught alot of fish, so we're gonna use
these, you know, salmon flies,like this is what we should use.
And I'm like, the hatch was twoflies.
That was like three weeks ago.
That's and you have to yousometimes just have to let them

(59:20):
struggle for a while untilyou're like, okay, are you are
you ready?
Are you are you open to asuggestion now?
And then you switch over tosomething you know is gonna work
just to get that immediate, andthen the then they listen to you
the rest of the day.
I remember that.

SPEAKER_03 (59:33):
And with salmon, it with salmon moving around
systems, it really changeslocation, you know, and and what
they're eating and things likethat.
So you can you can be completelyoff or you can be spot on, and
you know, it's it's part of aguide's job to be and to know
what's going on, and so and andto deal with the client.

SPEAKER_00 (59:58):
I shouldn't say deal with the client.
Yeah, it's well to work with theclients, to be a leader.
You're an interleader, yeah, aleader, or sometimes a therapist
or a coach.
I've had uh floating down theriver with a client in the front
of the boat talking about theirupcoming divorce or their past
divorce or their this or theirthat, and it's just um yeah, so

(01:00:21):
there's a lot of scope.

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:22):
People all want to catch fish.
So for me, it was always aboutyou know, production of the
actual thing that they came todo.
I I I I would say that I wouldforce people to catch fish
against their wishes on theirfishing trip, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:41):
That might be where you have not to.
That might be where you and Iare different, and that's why
I'm doing a podcast and you'restill fishing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, because I just like totalk and have conversations.

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:52):
I still eat it up, man.
If I can make that guy catch afish, so I ate that all up.
I loved it, and then while I wasup in Alaska, out came the May
1994 issue of Fly Fishermanmagazine.

(01:01:13):
Very cool.
Right there's the wordKamchatka.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:17):
All right, yeah.
So for those listening thatdon't see it, he's got you said
May what year?
1994.
94, and you saw Kamchatka on thecover of Fly Fisherman Magazine.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:29):
This magazine I'm holding in my hand right now.
The exact one you're holding inyour hand.
Yep, Kamchatka, Russian RainbowFrontier by John Randolph.
And it's it's it's aninteresting, it's more
interesting to me now than itwas then, but it set me off
because there's all thesepictures of giant rainbow trout,

(01:01:52):
one right after the other, in aplace where there's no people.
Yeah.
And I was like, oh, I want to gothere.
And at that time, there'sactually in the movie, very
popular movie back in 2008called Eastern Rises, the fly
shop made they interview uh kindof the lead guy, and he says,

(01:02:13):
Oh, yeah, when I worked at CatMy Lodge, they told me I was
gonna go to Kemchatka.
Well, I got snookered into thattoo, and so I switched from Dave
Eggdorf's place on the Nushigakto Cat My Lodge on the Lagnac
River.
They cat my lodge were TonySarp, the owner of Cat My Lodge,

(01:02:35):
was the guy sending people toKemchatka with a relationship
with Anatolikovalankov, whoowned a company called Perga.
And so I interviewed.
I mean, this is funny because Ididn't interview with Les, the
manager, or Tony, the owner.
I interviewed with the guys whoare in that magazine article,

(01:02:58):
Equal Heart Les Jacober.
And actually in '95 at theDenver ISE show interviewed with
those guys for the job inKemchatka.
And they're like, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, it's great.
You go come work in Alaska, andthen we'll go over mid-season to
Kemchatka because that's whenthey would go over after salmon
was mostly done on the lagnac orthe trout fishing in Kemchka was

(01:03:19):
really turning on.
And I went and worked there fora couple years.
I found out pretty quickly thatthey told everyone that.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:30):
Yeah.
So it sounds like so it soundslike there was a lot of demand,
a lot of guides that wanted togo to Kemchaka.
And and were being told that,well, if you come work with us
for, you know, it's like kind oflike we're gonna give you a
raise in a month, we're gonnasend you to Kamchatka in a month
or whatever, and it didn'treally happen.

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:47):
No, and so in '95, I I had switched from Dave's place
where I had worked every singleday of the season to that place
where I'm one of 33 guides atCat My Lodge.
And I was a new guy, and I gotabout as many weeks of guiding
in as any of the new guys thatwere there, but I nothing like

(01:04:08):
what I had done the year before.
And I was like, wow, andKimchaka didn't happen because
Tony canceled the season andwith some big rigor moral.
And so I I wasn't gonna go back,but they kept talking to me.
In 2006, I went back and Istayed at Katmai the whole time.
Again, they didn't do a Kemchakor they did a short Kemchaka

(01:04:29):
season, real short Kemchakaseason.
But I guided every day from June8th to October 4th at Katmai on
the Lagnac, doing lots offlyouts, doing all kinds of jet
boating, really.
And that's what we were doing onDave's place with jet boats, and
I love jet boats.
And um so that year, thatwinner, um Steve Pre, who is a

(01:04:55):
Canadian, super great guy, greatfisherman, quit.
And but he was one of the guidesin Kimchatka.
And he went and actually washead guide at Dean River Lodge
in Canada, and I got his spot,and they sent me over.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:14):
What do you think it was that helped you secure that
spot?

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:19):
When we rebuilt the um dock in front of Cat My
Launch that summer of 2006, orand they I I pounded nails next
to Tom Hoggin, the head guidewho had worked there for 23
years all day, every day forabout two weeks.

(01:05:41):
I think that got me the job.
They they knew I could I couldwork like a maniac and and I you
know I can talk and I, you know,have been around, I can uh uh
get along with pretty muchanybody, you know, and I was
doing a good job guiding.
I I I I like the fishing part ofit.
So, you know.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:02):
I'm happy I asked that.
I'm happy I asked that becauseI've been around a few fishing
guides that are like, no, I'm afishing guide, I'm not a
contractor, I'm not aconstruction pro whatever,
right?
But what I heard you say, andI'm happy I asked, was that
effort to be a team player,probably, but also just the
proximity, just being close topeople that are influential and

(01:06:24):
doing it in a way that you'rehelping them and you're working
with them.
And it's it's a greatopportunity that I think a lot
of younger people, whether it'sin guiding or just general in
life, it's uh so anyway.
So thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_03 (01:06:36):
Yeah, and and you know, the thing about it was um
yeah, you know, a lot of guysspend more energy getting out of
work than doing the work, right?
And never quite understood that.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:49):
I was in the army, I I saw that every day.
I was like, these guys arereally good at getting out of
work.

SPEAKER_03 (01:06:56):
And you know, I I kind of enjoy it and do like
building things and figuringthings out and working on motors
and doing all that stuff.
And And you know, one of thethings I just didn't want to be
just a fishing guide.
I wanted more than that formyself.
And then I went to Kemchatka andI was like, wow, this is

(01:07:20):
something.
Because we we didn't see asingle other person that first
year or the second year.
Zero other fishermen.
Nobody.
Ever.
And I mean probably a bigadjustment after Alaska.
Bears and the dogs.
I mean, if you if everyone'shonest about Bristol Bay,
Alaska, you're gonna see otherplanes and other fishermen.
It's just the way it is.

(01:07:41):
Kim check it, you see no one,right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:43):
Or anywhere in the US, like Madison River, the
Yellowstone River, the any ofthese places, it's really,
really weird.
Like if you showed up on theYellowstone and there was no one
there, you'd think, oh my god,the fish must all be dead.
Yeah, fish kill.
What's going on?
Is it closed for the season?
Am I I better check the yeah, Ibetter check and make sure that

(01:08:05):
yeah.
That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 (01:08:08):
Wow.
And the fascinating thing is aPanaba River, which I went to,
and you know, I got toKemcheka's 97, and like I said
early on, the people were reallybroken.
And it was really, they werevery poor.
And the apartment I stayed inthe first night, I was like,
wow, this is something.
But then I got to the lodge, abeautiful lodge.

(01:08:30):
And Andre Kanovalov, the managerand his wife, Marina are just
they both spoke perfect English,or just incredibly bright,
lovely people.
I would have coffee with Andreevery morning before everybody
got up because I was I'm still apretty early riser.
And you know, it was just it,and there was no people, there

(01:08:54):
was no planes.
There was, and I was like, wow,this is really something, man.
I don't know what to think aboutall this.
And then in 90, the winter of97, the two guys who were my
boss over there quit.
And then the owner of the lodgesaid, come sell fishing trips in

(01:09:15):
my office in Washington,Seattle.
And you, you know, you'll goback to Kemchatka and do all
this stuff.
So I went to worked in the salesoffice for Kat My Lodge and
started doing the sports showcircuit and the mass mailers,
and he handed me giant cards,stacks of cards from past sports

(01:09:36):
shows, and I cold called forweek months before we started
the sport show thing.
And I loved that too.
It was great.
It's one of the great thingsabout my job.
I called a guy who's veryinterested in Kim Chakka this
year.
He sent me an email, and I sawthat he had sent me an email
with his phone number in 2016.

(01:09:57):
Uh, and I had I called him theother day on the phone,
yesterday maybe it was, or daybefore yesterday, and he picks
it up and he says, Who's thisand what's this pertaining to?
And I said, This is Will Blairfrom the best of the wild best
of chem chat got calling inresponse to your email about
fishing.
Oh, Will, how are you, man?

(01:10:19):
We talked back in 2002, youknow, blah blah.
Their whole attitude changes,yeah.
Right.
As soon as you start talking tothese CEOs and guys about
fishing, they they're likelittle kids.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:33):
I I've done both.
I've done it, I've been in thetravel and fishing business
quite a good chunk of my life,but I also did real estate for a
while just to try and make uh anex-wife happy.
And yeah, and trust me, it it'sthe reception's not quite as
good when you call and say, Hey,are you still thinking about
selling your house?
If you're gonna sell your house,where would you go to?
It's totally different.
Bye, right?

(01:10:55):
Yeah, well, I'm talking aboutfishing, yeah.
Man, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:58):
Fill my appointment, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:00):
And if there's uh if there's a call screener and you
say, you know, I'm well, I'mreaching out to him because it
inquired about a fishing trip.
Oh yeah, you're getting through.
It's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:13):
It really is you're gonna get through.
Yeah, so yeah, that's cool.
So you know, then um, andthere's lots of crazy stories.
And that summer of 98, I wentover there again.
And one of the things that'sfrustrating is you know, uh most
of Kamchek is clear runningrivers, they run clear all the

(01:11:38):
time.
The Zhapanova, where Kat Maiwas, where this article in the
magazine is about, and where Iwas guide and then head guide
in '98, has a very activevolcano called the Karamskaya
volcano in the drainage.
And when it rains, that thinggets muddy and you can't fish.
And I was super frustrated,especially in '98 when we had

(01:12:01):
two weeks back-to-back groupswhere we only fished a couple
days and you're sitting aroundlots and stuff.
It has it has huge rainbow troutin it, some of the biggest in
the world.
Yeah.
But I I I knew there was some,there was a thousand-mile-long
peninsula.
I'm like, there's gotta be.
And I talked to Renee Lamirez,who had fished some of the stuff

(01:12:22):
over there, was one of thereally first guys to go in
in '92.
As a he uh did float trips onsome rivers.
He's like, Oh, there's clearrivers.
You don't ever have to worryabout dirty water.
So in 98, um, gosh, so so manycrazy stories.
Um uh one of the things that CatMy Lodge also got involved with

(01:12:44):
in Kemchatka was steelheadfishing on the west coast of
Kemchatka.
And they um it's one of myfavorite stories.
So the steelhead program on theSobachinaya River, huge
steelhead, 20-pound fish.
Wow, tons of incrediblewilderness, middle of nowhere.

(01:13:06):
No one's fished it probablysince 1999, by the way, for
Steelhead.
And so the owner of Cat My Lodgeis a um has a different partner
than the guy I'm working with.
So he's working with a companycalled Jan and Coots to be the
outfitter for the Steelheadprogram.
I happen to be in town inPetropavlovsk and got called to

(01:13:29):
a meeting, and we were supposedto have six groups of steelhead
fishermen.
I was gonna go guide that yearfor Steelhead.
First time and the only time Idid it.
And I got called to a meetingwith Andrey Sitsko, the Russian
guy who I had met, and a womanfrom the Wild Salmon Center, and

(01:13:50):
Andre the outfitter, he waspartnered as an outfitter.
I walk into the meeting and hehands me a uh uh some papers and
he says, uh look at clause 12 ofthe contract.
And there's the contract for mymy boss in the United States,
and I look at the contract and Iand I read it, and it says, for

(01:14:14):
uh every complaint voiced by aclient about service, food,
transportation, guiding,equipment, Janin Koots Limited,
which is a Russian outfitter,right, will reimburse Cat My
Lodge Limited$1,000 percomplaint.

(01:14:37):
Wow.
That's what I said.
I said it right now and andAndre looked at me and says,
This guy thinks we're idiots.
He thought he thinks everyone isan idiot.
Okay, yeah.
And so we end up having a couplegroups come in that were
supposed to be steelheadfishing, and they didn't do it.
So Tony set up this thing wherewe went and did an exploratory

(01:15:01):
float trip on a river on thewest coast and to look for
steelhead.
And they land us on the gravelbar.
It's me, uh another American,Ryan Lampers, and Sasha, the one
big Russian guy.
And they land us on his gravelbar, and before we had our three

(01:15:22):
rafts pumped up, the guys theywere all experienced fishermen,
they had caught and landed ahundred rainbows.
One gravel bar.
Big ones, you know, three, four,five pounders, one every gas.
That day, we those guys easilyhooked 600 rainbow trout.

(01:15:44):
Jesus.
Easily.
There were six or eight of themfishing.
It was easily that many.
Everywhere you threw the fly,you could drop it off the side
of the raft, uh, two foot longrainbow trout would come grab
it.
It was like nothing I had seenat the other place at the other
river, while they were bigger,you catch four or five a day per

(01:16:05):
guest.
This place, and we went back thenext week, and uh the next week
was my 31st birthday, and we didan overnight float with Marn
Hornblower, who was 89 yearsold, and was there with her son
and her grandson.
Oh, cool.
And we had plenty of guides andplenty of people, and they told
me to fish on my 31st birthday,and I landed exactly 100 rainbow

(01:16:28):
trout on a mouse fly on thesurface that day on my 31st
birthday.
And it's the most miserable dayof fishing I've ever had.
Literally, the helicopter'srunning, and I'm trying to catch
number 100.
Oh, it hit me on the helicopter,right?
And that's that's 1998, and thisleads me into what ended up

(01:16:52):
actually happening.
Tony Sarp, that same guy, myboss in the United States, God
rest his soul, he's a smart guy.
And he got caught ripping offthe Russians for one guest per
week all season long.
Oh, okay.
Anatoly Kovalenkov, the Russianowner of Perga and Cretchit

(01:17:13):
Helicopter Company, and SockjoyFurrier Company is a big monkey
muck, told me that day I wasleaving.
He said, Tell your boss never tocontact us again.
We're done.
Okay.
And so I went back and collectedmy last check.
I knew I wasn't gonna work inAlaska.
I had seen the promised land, Ihad seen the Culpa Cobra.

(01:17:34):
Yeah.
I mean, we the that overnightfloat, we hooked a thousand
rainbows in two days.
It was crazy insane.
And I was like, wow, and acrystal clear river.
So I went home, I get home, andI quit my job at Cat My Lodge.

(01:17:55):
I had met uh my current wife.
We're having our 25th weddinganniversary.
I met her at Cat My Lodge.
Wow.
In a few in a few weeks.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:04):
And uh you might want to quit calling her your
current wife if you want to keepher around.

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:09):
Yeah, another 20 years.
That's a joke I saw on TikTok.
I don't know.
That was a Freudian slip.
Uh-huh.
I've done that.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:15):
So we've done that too, and now I'm divorced.

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:17):
So take backpacked all over Peru and Bolivia for
two months.
And then I'm looking for a job.
We moved to Bend, Oregon.
She got a job, a good jobimmediately, and I'm looking for
something.
And a friend that had workedover there and had been my boss
in '97 said that there was a guywho was interested in uh running

(01:18:40):
fishing trips on the CopacovaRiver, the river where we caught
a thousand hooked a thousandtrout in two days.
I was like, really?
And he, oh yeah, he's fromGlenwood Springs, Colorado.
So I met him at Salt Lake and westruck up a partnership, and uh
he introduced me to VictorReberkov, my current and still
since then business partner,Russian business partner.

(01:19:03):
And we ran for three years, weran a jet boat camp on that
river, the Kolpakova.
And that's when I started doinglots of sport shows.
I think I did 12 sport showsthat year.

SPEAKER_00 (01:19:14):
Is that when Best of Kamchatka was coined?

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:17):
That was Kamchatka Expeditions.
Okay.
That was Kamchatka Expeditions.
And you know, most people, whenthey hear these stories, go, but
I'm not the only one.
There's lots of these stories.
I can tell you about recentones.
After three years of buildingthat company from 16 fishermen
to 52 to 103 anglers by 2001, myAmerican partner and my two of

(01:19:42):
my guides who had worked for methe first and second year but
wouldn't work for me again.
I wouldn't hire him again, gottogether and decided they'd like
my money and Victor's money morethan I liked it.
They started a new company withmy money and Victor's money
called Russian Rivers.
And Victor Rebirkoff sued him inDenver court in 2001.

(01:20:09):
And we Victor and I tried to getsomething back together, but I
think we both were justunreasonable, kind of burnt.
And I called the fly shop togive uh the owner of the fly
shop the business aboutsomething I heard he said to one
of my clients, and he offered mea job before the phone call was
over.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:31):
That worked out well.

SPEAKER_03 (01:20:33):
Yeah, well, we had other than we had to move for
Ben to Redding, California,which unless you're a fisherman,
it's a downgrade.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:41):
I've I've been to both places.
Um actually had before I endedup going to Orvis, I had gone
and met with um Mike and and PatVendergast at the at the fly
shop.
And yeah, so but you actually soyou ended up going to the fly
shop, which for the for those ofthe listeners that don't know,
just the real quick what is thefly shop and what were you doing

(01:21:02):
there?

SPEAKER_03 (01:21:03):
So he hired me to come on and be uh his director
of Kamchatka travel, and I hadactually met him steelhead
guiding on the Sopachania threeyears prior.
Okay, he had brought a groupover.
And so he wanted me to come inand fire up their Kamchatka

(01:21:23):
program.
They weren't doing the steelheadanymore because that all fell
apart when Katmai leftKamchatka, but they were doing a
week or two maybe at theJapanova where I had been head
guide.
And and and I also had my youknow contact with Victor
Rebrikoff, my partner who didthe Kolpakova River with me.

(01:21:44):
Right.
So he hired me and um they hadsent eight people there.
We also brought in the WildSalmon Center got involved out
of Seattle, which is a 501c3that does lots of great salmon
conservation work all in thePacific Northwest.

(01:22:05):
And they had a contract with theSedaka River guys, and we all
got together, and I had thehorsepower of the fly shop
behind me and my knowledge, andI knew these guys, and I had
been over there now for fiveyears at that point, kind of
knew my way around and had goodrelationships with everybody.

(01:22:26):
And um, with the guy uh Anatolion the Japanova, the guy who
told me to tell my boss never tocome back, he loved me.
I made three of his jet boatswork in 1998 that they couldn't
get to run in 97, just lucky.
That's a whole story in and ofitself.
And um so they we they had senteight people in 2001 to

(01:22:51):
Kemchatka.
By 2003, we sent 260 people toKemchatka to a bunch of
different programs, and Istarted doing lots of
exploratory.
I kind of cooked that idea upwhen I was working there of
doing exploratories that werefunded by anglers.
And so we started looking at allthese rivers, and I mean I sold

(01:23:15):
the trips, I told them it couldbe a total disaster.
I don't know yet.
We haven't fished that river,you know.
But I had contacts with KemChatner Row, Kem Chad Rivad,
with the fish guys through theWild Salmon Center.
So we they all knew, you know,the that there's rainbows in
that river, there's Dolly Bartononly in that river.

(01:23:35):
So we had lots of information.
Um uh and so we startedexpanding and doing
exploratories.
And in 19 in 2003, I had a groupof exploratory guys, and it's
one of my favorite keepsakesI'll ever own in my life.

(01:23:56):
And uh uh we had done anexploratory with some biologists
that I knew um on a river calledthe Rososhna.
And then Victor.
Um, so these guys, when they getthese concessions, there's
competition.
So you have to show some usageif you want to get the permits,
etc., like that.

(01:24:17):
And so he wanted to take me fromthe Rososhna tributary to the
main stem Levy River, and I hadjust fished the other one, so we
um uh he and I had an argument,a reasonably heated argument
after all the we had the newguys coming in, gonna do an

(01:24:39):
exploratory.
Victor wanted us to go to theLevy River.
I didn't want to go to it, I hadjust been there the week before.
I knew what it held.
It was really, really good.
You're hard to call it anexploratory trip when you were
there last week.
Well, we were gonna do the upperdifferent fork of it, 90% of it
would have been exploring, butyou know, that that system, you

(01:25:01):
know, it's a system you knowkind of what's there, it was
very good and had good rainbowtrout in it, a lot of dollies,
some pretty good graylingfishing, but it wasn't like
mind-blowing river.
And so that night after thoseguys went to bed, I'm up with
Victor and the pilots andeverybody, and and I get out the

(01:25:21):
map, and Victor's drawing on theLevy River, and and I and I had
remembered Victor had told meabout 1999 he had stopped on a
river up north called theAzranaya, and that he had a bear
hunter with him who had aspinning rod, and he jumped out
and was catching trophy rainbowevery cast.

(01:25:42):
I'm like, I want to go there,Victor, tomorrow.
Oh, we can't go there, can't gothere.
Well, I don't why not?
Well, we don't have the permit,it's inside of Kerr missile
testing zone, it's a restrictedmilitary polygon.
I said, I don't care, we can go.
I don't know.

(01:26:05):
I kept drawing on the Azernaya,he kept drawing on the Levy, I
kept drawing in marker in pen,ballpoint pen, back and forth
for like two hours becausethey're stubborn.
I am too.
And finally he says, Oh, okay,we'll do it, we'll try, which is
what he would say, we'll try.

(01:26:26):
And so the next morning weactually had kind of low
weather, and we stopped on theRososhina, the one which is
going north towards Azernaya,and stopped on the Rososhina to
wait for the fog to lift, andthen we went up and we're going
straight north over, you know,the uh a bunch of rivers that
I've fished since that time.

(01:26:48):
Um, and we come over the hill,and we're on the deck flying
over the hill, and we come overthis crystal clear, beautiful,
giant river, and I can see fishof all varieties, everything.
Right under the we land thehelicopter, and again, it was

(01:27:11):
like 500 fish that day wehooked.
Yeah, wow, rainbow trout.
When I talk fish, I mean rainbowtrout.
That doesn't count the DollyVarden, the grayling, and the
chrome bright silvers that werethere that were all you know up
to 20 pound silvers, crazy bigsilvers.
I was totally, completely blownaway because the grayling are

(01:27:35):
all 19, 20 inch grayling, whichare close to world records.
Yeah, dollies 30 inches thatfirst day.
I was like, wow, and rainbowsthat were huge, 25, 26, 27-inch
rainbows, big ones, lots ofthem, as many as you could
catch.
It was crazy.
And we camped below this littlecreek that first night, and the
next morning I caught a two-footrainbow in that little creek

(01:27:58):
that you could jump across.
And I walked up on the bluffabove there, overlooking the
river, and Sasha and Drushin waswith me, and he I told him, I
said, This is where they weshould build a camp.
Yeah, and we did right there,and that ran for 16 years on the
Osranaya.

(01:28:19):
We ran eight people a week withfour jet boats every day.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:22):
What was the first because you obviously have a
tremendous amount of experience,and I know that we could like
every season was new and it alot of cool things, and you're a
fisherman, so am I, and we cantell fishing stories.
Both of us probably tell fishingstories all day.
But I'm curious, like when wasthe first season that you did or

(01:28:44):
that you kind of shifted alittle bit instead of just
completely focused on Kamchatka?
And then you've got youmentioned the Bahamas, you
mentioned um Brazil.
So I want to touch on those aswell and kind of give me an idea
how you transitioned into that.

SPEAKER_03 (01:28:56):
Well, so for all that time, and like I said, I
have a uh unique self designbusiness program all that time.
I'm Over there doing Kemchatka.
And then in 2018, my neighborhere in Boulder, Colorado,
contacts me and says, Hey, umthe guy down on Ragged Island in
the Bahamas once, he actuallycontacted me in like 2016, wants

(01:29:21):
to open up the lodge that theyhad run for a year and a half or
two years with a booking agentout of Wyoming.
And he, but that didn't workout.
Like I said, a crazy stuffhappens in the fishing business.
And that didn't work out.
This guy wants to open it, andit took us like two years before

(01:29:42):
I said, let's just go do it.
We rode the mailboat from NASAfor three and a half days down
to Ragged Island.
Nothing there.
It was right the year afterHurricane Irma blasted it.
There's like 10 people on theisland.
Maybe 10 people.
We go out, we're out fishing for20 minutes, and he lands a

(01:30:04):
legitimate 10-pound bone fish.
Nice.
Wow.
Biggest bone fish I've everseen.
That's huge.
Yeah, that's huge.
And we saw three or four otherson that same flat that same
first evening out that were allthat big or bigger.
And I was like, wow.

SPEAKER_00 (01:30:21):
But it's a three-day boat ride.

SPEAKER_03 (01:30:23):
Yeah.
So how did you make that work?
One of the great things aboutstaying in a business a long
time is I have a lot ofconnections with a lot of you
know really good people.
And so in 219, a group of youngguys went down with me in May,
and we made a movie that was inthe F3T uh fly fishing film tour

(01:30:46):
in 2020, right before COVID.
And at the same time, I had uh amagazine article come out in
Northwest, Southwest, andEastern Fly Fishing Magazine,
which is now American FlyFishing Magazine.
And um, you know, no one's beento Ragged Island.
And we didn't know we knew therewere big bone fish there.

(01:31:09):
There were some schools.
So in 219, when we went back, wedidn't really have a good boat
to look around.
We caught a permit, and wecaught a lot of bone fish out of
a couple schools that we knowquite intimately now, and so we
had an article and a movie, solots of people wanted to go.
So I said, Well, the same thingI'm doing in Kimchat, I just

(01:31:32):
make a calendar and startselling weeks, and we hired a
charter, which is just one ofthe loveliest stories ever in my
uh entire career, how that'sworked out, and we take people
once a week.
There's guys there right now.
And there's an because there'san airstrip on the island?
Yeah, so there's a 4,000-footpaved strip on the island.

SPEAKER_02 (01:31:55):
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (01:31:56):
And that's about it.
I mean, there's 28 people thatlive on the island now.
My partner's eighth gener,excuse me, seventh generation.
His kids are eighth generationragged islanders.

SPEAKER_02 (01:32:07):
Wow.

SPEAKER_03 (01:32:08):
His wife's from Staniel.
Um, you know, we bought someflat skiffs.
We've actually are replacing oneof them now.
We have had different guidesover the last few six years.
We're six years in now, and it'sbeen it's been absolutely
lovely.
And I have basically the sameexact so I I didn't quite finish

(01:32:31):
the story.
So I'm working at the fly shop.
I decided it was my time toleave.
My Russian partner, Victor,wanted to leave and just work
with me.
So he actually broke off therelationship, and I ended up
leaving the fly shop and workingwith Victor again direct.
And that's when I started thebest of chem chat.
That's right.
But then that morphed into thebest of the wild with the

(01:32:53):
addition of Ragged Island on theBahamas.
And um, you know, that has beenit's really worked out great.
We again, small.
We take four people a week.
There's a little lodge there,everyone gets their own room.
We have two skiffs, we have anextra skiff, and we go out and
fish flats uh for permit bones,some of the biggest bone fish

(01:33:16):
I've ever seen.
Um, I we had a guy uh the secondyear catch a 14-pound bone fish,
which is now that's yeah, that'sridiculous.
Are you running it year-round?
No, no, we do like this spring.
We have 12 groups, and then wehave four groups in the fall.

SPEAKER_00 (01:33:33):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 (01:33:35):
All right, and secondary.
Yeah, we avoid the storm season.
And now, you know, I like tostart kind of early in February
because those giant monsterbones like that cool water, and
they'll be up on the flats.
And you know, um I said one ofthe coolest things was the

(01:33:55):
charter, we end up with DracoChamberlain, great guy.
He owns a company calledGraceful Wings out of Staniel K.
Super great guy.
And my partner, Faiko Wallace,seventh generation Ragged
Islander, he runs Bahama Powerand Light for the island for 25
years.
All right.

SPEAKER_00 (01:34:14):
And which is probably a big generator
somewhere out back of his house.

SPEAKER_03 (01:34:19):
There's there's a story there, but they're just
now fixing the giant solar arraythey put in after Hurricane Irma
that ran for a few years butthen had a problem.
But they just I think they'reworking on it next week.
Okay, but he I'll get you'reright, a giant generator.
He's a diesel mechanic, he's anoutboard mechanic, and he's an
auto mechanic.
He could do anything, he'sawesome, talented, super bright

(01:34:42):
guy.
And I can't believe how lucky Igot.
And his wife and his daughtercook, and the other daughter
helps, and it's a family affair,it's so cool.
And his son, the first year2021, was a guiding force, super
talented, good looking, talk toanybody, really worldly young

(01:35:04):
man, 21 years old, has workedwith lots of uh he's made a lot
of money up taking tours to theswimming pigs on Staniel K and
all that up there.
And he was out with uh two ofour guests back in 2021, and a
plane flies over, and and Macio,Masio Wallace is his name.

(01:35:25):
He says, that's a Cessna 402with twin blah blah blah and
blah blah blah blah blah.
And these two guys that are withhim look at him as they had
flown their own plane to theisland, and they looked at him
and they said, Hey, how do youknow so much about that plane?
We're both instructors, we don'tknow that much about that plane.

(01:35:45):
He says, Well, I have a dream tobe a pilot.
I'm a Bahamian, young Bahamianguy.
I'd love to be a pilot, it's agreat job.
And they said, Well, what areyou doing about it?
And he said, Well, right beforeCOVID, I sent$10,000 to a flight
school in Florida, and they wentout of business during COVID,
and I lost all my money, so I'mstarting to save money again to

(01:36:06):
go to flight school.
Wow.
And those guys said, Okay,that's not a great story.
So, what we're gonna do is we'regonna sponsor you, and we're
gonna bring you to Dallas, we'regonna get you your own
apartment, and we're gonna putyou through flight school.
And he got graded foreverything.
And for now, for the last threeand a half, four years, he's who

(01:36:29):
flies our custom.
My partner's son is the pilot ofthe plane, and he flies that all
over all the time.
And those guys never ask for athing, just did that out of and
they changed his life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:36:45):
That's a great story.
Wow, wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:36:48):
That's uh that's really kid, always on time,
super good pilot, smooth.
And I thought with a lot ofpilots, he's good.

SPEAKER_00 (01:36:58):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you have.
That's a super, super cool, coolstory.
Um, do you want to touch on whatyou're doing in Brazil?
I don't want to miss anything,but I I do you want to touch on
what's going on in Brazil?

SPEAKER_03 (01:37:11):
You know, Brazil is a fascinating thing to me.
Um because I I I I went downthere and I had the opportunity
to go to these places that are,you know, two were untouched.
One hadn't been fished in like adecade, the other had never been

(01:37:33):
fished.
We ran a season last year on theone that had never been fished.
We probably missed the markbecause of going too early with
water was too high.
And the other one, it'sinteresting.
This is you know, Brazil is alittle bit tougher nut to crack
because it's a reallywell-developed sport fishery.

(01:37:55):
And so there's lots of fingersin the pie.
And I have the uh uh ability tosend people to a bunch of
different places, but I Ihaven't really, you know, sunk
my teeth in totally uh with aplace that is the same level of

(01:38:15):
trust between ownership.

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:17):
Yeah, yeah.
And you've had some experiencewith that.
Yep.
Yep.
Over the years, so I canunderstand why you walk into
that.
I do want to ask you because youmentioned it's well developed.
I've been to Brazil twice, onceto a lodge that catered really
to mostly Americans, you know,from North America.
Agua Bowl.
Um, but yeah, exactly.

(01:38:39):
And the other one that I did wasmore of a remote, you know, kind
of one of those things wherethey've got the boat and pull
the the cabins behind it.
Yeah, yeah.
So there's I think there havebeen a couple over the years,
and it's been a long time.
But when I went on that one, itwas almost all Brazilians, like
all the guests, and I it was atotally different experience,
not in a bad way.
But I'm thinking that there'sjust there's a lot of people

(01:39:00):
that live in Brazil that I thinkgo on fishing.
So when you say it's reallydeveloped, is that part of the
issue?
Is there's just a lot moreBrazilians fishing there?
Oh I guess so.

SPEAKER_03 (01:39:10):
But you know, the one thing I learned in 11
different locations is youreally don't want to mix gear
and fly guys.

SPEAKER_00 (01:39:19):
Well, that was the other I said they were
Brazilian.
I did not mention they were allspin fishermen.
Yeah, the one guy with the flyrod.
You can't compete.

SPEAKER_03 (01:39:28):
You can't compete with them.
And none of them spoke English.
It was a weird way to get downand they won't buy.
And I've been to those and I'vebeen to others, and so you know,
a fly only for the fly angler ofNorth America.
That's why Agua Boa, where yousaid you went, is fly only.
I guess for like 99% of thetime, and and so those fish

(01:39:51):
behave differently than ifthey've got a big wood chopping
spinner thing coming over theirhead all day, every day.
And and and peacock bats do theydon't like pressure.
And so I I think fly fishing isthe lower impact kind of thing.
So there is some of that, andyou know, it it just one of the

(01:40:12):
one of the major issues, and andI seen it in the Bahamas, I've
seen it in Kamchatka, you see itanywhere you go as an American.
Uh, when you step off the plane,and they can't help themselves.
They think, oh, this guy'sprobably pretty wealthy.
Yeah, yeah.
Right?
He's got some money to throwaround.
That's not who I am.

(01:40:33):
That's not my life.
Yeah, I'm a working guy, right?
Mean it, yep.
And and so I'm not a trust fundguy.
I don't have rich parents.
Uh, you know, I work and youknow, it's all done with the
customers.
And you know, the the I think ofall the places I've been, the

(01:40:55):
Brazilians want it to happenfaster than it takes to develop
a program.
I mean, sometimes you get lucky,like I got lucky in the Bahamas
because I had F3T and a bunch ofmagazine articles.
So I had a magazine article justthis past fall about the place
we ran last year in Brazil.

(01:41:16):
Beautifully written article withmy photographs, and I got
virtually no traction on it.
And I think that's because themarket is much more saturated.

SPEAKER_00 (01:41:27):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:41:28):
And it's a big trip, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:41:31):
Well, that's the that's the thing, is there's I
mean, I remember when I wasrunning the travel at Orvis, it
was you know, it was much easierto have a conversation with
somebody about going on a bonefishing trip in the Bahamas or a
trip to Montana or even a tripto Chile or Argentina,
Patagonia.
And whereas I think Brazil, likein my experience, we sold Brazil

(01:41:54):
trips for a long time, but we'dget one or two people here and
there that maybe would want todo it, unless I did a group
trip.
And that's when I went toAlgobo.
It was literally because I justwent out to all the guests that
had been with me in other placesand said, Hey, I'm going to
Brazil.
Do you want to go?
And they said yes.
I don't even know if that'sbecause they wanted to go to
Brazil, honestly.
Yeah, and that's true.

(01:42:16):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:42:17):
That's and like last year we did five weeks, and I
think three of them were peoplethat have been with me to
Kamchatka, been with me toBahamas, and it would they're
like group trips.
You know, and and and like Iguess Kamchatka and the Bahamas
is sort of like group trips, butone of the things I learned a

(01:42:40):
long time ago is I can't beeverywhere all at once.
And when I was doing my threeprograms in Kamchatka, I would
rotate through them all duringthe season and then do
exploratories.
So at any given time, and thenmy daughter was real little for
much of that time, and I wouldcome home for a week or two and
then go back.
So I never get if you can't haveyou have to have the people who

(01:43:04):
are helping you be trustworthyenough to do a great job.

SPEAKER_02 (01:43:07):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:43:08):
And exactly, you know, it's one of one of the
things that is challenging aboutthe hosted deal that makes me
different, though, is when I gotoff the helicopter in cam check
at any one of the threeprograms, I was gonna be the guy
running the jet boat.
I was you were just the host.
Yeah, I'm not the host, man.

(01:43:29):
I'm the guy who's putting a new,you know, one one of the things
that skill that I really wasproud of was being able to put a
bearing into uh uh a jet lowerunit without a press.
And the Russians taught me howto use hot boiling water to get
it done.
And and and I the guests will bein eating dinner, and I will

(01:43:52):
have guided all day, and I'm outthere pressing bearings, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:43:56):
It's not the same as a host, right?
It's I I get it completelybecause when I when I was at
Orvis leading group trips, I wasthe host basically.
Yeah, I was there to just kindof make sure everybody's having
fun and somebody to ask themquestions about their day and
stuff like that.
Yep.
Um, where when I managed, Imanaged turn of flats and
beliefs.
Oh, yeah, you know that where itwhere it was like, okay, you

(01:44:18):
know, all day I'm running aroundwith the landscaper or the the
generator or the generator guyor working on the boat engines
or going into town to find acertain size of screw or light
bulbs or whatever.
And then at the end of the day,at the end of the day, I'd still
go out and meet the guests whenthey got back to the dock.
And I'd say, hey, hey guys, howwas how was your fishing today?
And and it was it was so funnybecause almost to a T, every one

(01:44:42):
of them would say they wouldtell me their fishing stories,
and they'd look at me and say,How about you?
What how was your fishing?
What did you catch today?
I'm like, Oh, you have no cluewhat I was doing today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But uh, and then we'd get ahost, we'd get a group come in
with a host, and I'd be like,Man, my job is to make him look
great.

(01:45:03):
Good job right there.

SPEAKER_03 (01:45:04):
Right, and and it was part of the deal why I've
always insisted on wanting toguide if I can now, like in the
Bamas, I can't legally guide,but I go out all the time, and I
have my own little boat there,so I'm running around and doing
stuff all the time.
But in Kimchatka, at the Ahascamp, I was uh I I took the
farthest uh beat downriver.

(01:45:27):
So we break the river intobeats, right?
I took what's called the canyonbeat, which was the farthest one
down, and the most difficult jetboat driving, the the probably
it's not very hard fishing, butthere it's a different nature of
river, so you had to be a littlebit more on your toes.

(01:45:48):
So everybody got to learn iteventually because I wanted to
not have to be there, and Icould be up at the flyout
program every day, jumping offthe helicopter, leading the
charge there.
And so for me, I I do we dohosted trips all the time in
Kimchatka and Alaska, or Alaskawe did, but Kimchatka and the

(01:46:11):
Bahamas.
And you know, I I think you hitit right on the head.
The the the host is there tomake sure the guests are having
a good time.
He's Mr.
Happy, even when things aretough.

SPEAKER_00 (01:46:23):
That's really the best job.
He's the one that sits down atthe table with the most
difficult person in the group,so nobody else has to.
That's what a trip host is for.
I learned that.

SPEAKER_03 (01:46:37):
And I've had good ones, and I've had guys they run
as far away from that guy asthey can, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:46:44):
Fish in front of him the next day and really get
cranked up.
Or or fishing, you know, youtake a group of 10 guys that
don't really know each other,maybe a few of them kind of know
each other, and they show up,and you've always got one guy in
the group that's not as much funto spend all day on the boat
with.
So that is what the host, that'swhat the host does.
The host goes fishing with theguy that nobody else wants to go

(01:47:05):
to.
So anybody that's listening tothis that always feels like, why
does the host always want tofish with me?
Now you know.
Yeah, now you know, becauseyou're the one that nobody else
wants to fish with.

SPEAKER_03 (01:47:16):
In like in Kemp Jack, there's so many funny
stories.
One of my uh, I'll have to thinkof his name in a second, but uh
a Russian guy, he's a attorneyby training, and he spoke pretty
good English, super good jetbodriver, a little older.

(01:47:38):
He was in his early 50s, and heguided off and on a little bit
at the Oz Jetboat camp.
One of the funniest stories.
He's we get all types, right?
And we have a group out ofTexas, and I had uh guided one
of them before and some of themand been before, but the big
group of eight guys, and we'redown at the boats, me and Sasha

(01:48:04):
and and uh Cody Wagner, and andhe says to me, you know, Will,
this summer I've seen many highlevel, or not many high level,
but some high-level fishermen.
See many, many mid-levelfishermen.
Today I saw ground zero.

(01:48:25):
Yeah.
I'm like, what are you talkingabout?
He said, You because we rotated,so all the guests would see a
new piece of river every daywith a new guide every day.
And the guide had his beat, andI so he it was like the third
day of the trip.
And I said, What are you talkingabout?
He said, You got him tomorrow.
You'll you'll see what I'mtalking about.
Okay.

(01:48:45):
So I take the guy down, and Iwon't say, but he was a district
attorney out of a bigmunicipality in Texas.
Smart guy, nice guy, fun guy,yeah, super good guy.
But his hand-eye coordinationwas as bad as I've ever seen on
somebody on a fly fishing trip.
And and and but he kind of jokedabout it, it was cool.

(01:49:08):
But on the Azernaya, not onlywas I guiding, and I don't know
how many, how much more of thisI could do, but we walk the boat
down the river, the guests stayin the boat, uh, pick the thing
apart so no one goes swimming,because we'd have people
constantly in the river, right?
It's not tough waiting, but it'snot easy waiting, so it's better

(01:49:28):
to walk the boat.
And and all I had to do was getthe guy to hang the fly below
the boat and let it hang there,and he's gonna catch trophy
rainbows all day long.
Because I I just put them rightabove where I knew where there's
fish.
He'd get it 10 feet out of theside of the boat and then it'd
swing on around and it'd hang atthe bottom.

(01:49:49):
Boom, trophy rainbow.
And I have a whole huge folderof all these giant rainbows.
I took pictures of him that day.
It's a ground zero folder.
Yeah, nice.
Yeah, yeah, it's a funny, funny.
So, you know, just so much goeson like that that that that is
my business model.
It's different than what what uhyou know, when I'm in the

(01:50:12):
Bahamas, I'm right there, rightwhatever needs to happen.
You know, one of the things Ialways felt about leadership,
you've seen the the cartoons ofyou know, leadership versus
whatever, and the realleadership management or
whatever.
Yeah, the guy who's out in thefront of the pack with the
front, you know, ropes over hisback.

(01:50:35):
And and I always felt thatthat's the right way.
I was always the first guy topick up a shovel, first guy to
split wood, first guy tochainsaw trees, whatever it took
to make the situation right forthe customer.
And you know for the guys thatI'm working with too, man.
Just some dudes standing aroundgiving orders, it's wasted

(01:50:55):
space.

SPEAKER_00 (01:50:56):
But you also we touched on that when you
explained how you got the job inKamchatka in the first place.
When I asked you, like how whatwas the thing?
It's you were pro you weredemonstrating leadership, even
if you're not the boss, becauseyou don't have to be the boss to
be a leader, right?
But you were demonstratingleadership, and something else
that you just mentioned remindedme of my very first job in the
fly fishing business.

(01:51:17):
I was self-taught, just startedreading all the books by you
know people that later on Iended up working with, but I
read their books and I was justout just trying to learn stuff.
And I was on the Bighorn River,um, and I just literally just
started going door to door atthe shops and lodges.
And I said, I will do anything,I'll dig holes.

(01:51:38):
I just want to be here in FortSmith, close to the water and
close to the business because Ijust want to learn.
And the third place I went, theguy's like, Well, you know, our
manager was unfortunately hadpassed away in a car accident at
the end of last season.
Um, when can when can you start?
We'll be the manager here.

(01:51:58):
Yeah, so I manager, well, it wasone of those, yeah, you're the
manager, but you're also theonly employee.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You were there, you know, everymorning to uh to introduce your
the guests to the guides, dothis, sell the flies and then
restock the flies and then youknow serve breakfast because we
had six rooms.
So most of the time I was alsocleaning the rooms.

(01:52:19):
That's hard work.
But my point on what you'resaying is that willingness to
just jump in and step in.
Yep.
Had I shown up, I mean, I guessif I'd shown up and said, Oh, I
have management experience andI've been I'm a great fly
fisherman, and you know, willyou give me a job?
I guess in that case, they weredesperate, they probably still
would have got the job.
Yeah, yeah.
You would have probably thatwillingness just in my head is

(01:52:43):
just to say, you know what, Ijust want to learn the business,
I'll do anything.
But my family thought I wasnuts, but anyway, yeah, that's
that's their side of it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:52:51):
They could hire that guy, but would they get the guy
who could do what you did, whichwas do the job?

SPEAKER_00 (01:52:57):
Yeah, and I was terrified.
I had no idea.
I was like, oh, I'm like I'mgonna run a fly shop and a
fishing lodge, and I've nevereven been with a fishing guide.
I've I rented a drift boat onceand spun in circles down the
river, but I I you know, no, butwe had rental boats, we had

(01:53:18):
rooms, we had all this stuff,and it was just yeah, it was
kind of crazy.
Um, but it's just thatwillingness to just jump in and
do things, which obviouslythat's how you've gotten to
well, I don't want to put wordsin your mouth, but it sounds
like that's been a lot of yoursuccess.

SPEAKER_03 (01:53:31):
So well, I I I um you know, I just think it's part
of what you're supposed to do.

SPEAKER_00 (01:53:37):
It just seems so so natural, just so natural to some
b to some people, because I canalso say when I got the job at
Turner Flats, probably two weeksin, they had me driving the
boat, the transfer boat from theisland back to Belize City.
Some kid from Wyoming.
Well, one of the only ever rodethe drift boat.

SPEAKER_03 (01:53:59):
If you if you if you're that guy, you are you
should expect to get all thejobs.
That's how they pile it on you.

SPEAKER_00 (01:54:09):
They will pile it on you for sure.
Oh, this is everything, unlessyou're everything.
And he'll or he just has faithin his ability to figure stuff
out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I wouldn't just say no.
Um, I remember it was you know,two months after we've been
there, I'd maybe done the thetrip 10 times, and it was really
bad weather, and we're, youknow, it's a 48 48-foot jet

(01:54:30):
boat, and I'm driving it.
There's nobody, none of thefishing guides they all go in
the night before.
There's nobody that really knowshow to drive a boat, including
me.
And I'm up there driving theboat.
And at some point, it's like myI turned around and I saw my
wife, she's sitting there withher life jacket on, the only one
on the park with her lifejacket.

(01:54:52):
And all the guests are like,Should we get ours?
I'm like, Oh no, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:54:58):
If your spouse doesn't if you're not a little
afraid when you're doing thatstuff, that's when you get hurt
and when things go awry.
Yeah, and when the guy's got alittle fear, he's gonna pay more
attention.
So you survived it, great.

SPEAKER_00 (01:55:13):
Look at the experience.
We we survived it, but Iremember thinking if your own
spouse partner, she was myfiance at the time, you know.
If if she's the the one mostscared on the boat, that doesn't
send a lot of confidence outthrough the rest of the people.

SPEAKER_03 (01:55:28):
They're like, Oh, that's Jason's and it's just the
way life is one of my favoriteclients of all time, and he went
with me seven times toKamchatka, Bobby Knight, just
what's so good, and he filledtwo weeks a season, and one of
the always the second week wouldbe like his family and dear

(01:55:52):
friends, and one of the guys uhowned an insurance company in
the town over from where I grewup, and he owned it uh uh
insurance company in Maryville,Indiana, and I grew up next town
over Hobart, and he gets off,and Tom is a super nice guy,
good fisherman, and and he wouldlook at me and he'd say, How the

(01:56:12):
hell does a guy from Hobart,Indiana end up in Kamchatka,
Russia?
Right?
And it was it's just that wholething my dad taught us, just do
it, just do it, just do it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:56:25):
Just do it.
Right.
That's uh that's a great greatfor anybody that's that's
listening.
Well, we've discussed a bunch ofthings.
Yeah, yeah.
I know I know we could come backand have three or four more
two-hour long conversations,right?
But I also want to make surebefore we wrap up, uh is there
anything that I forgot to askyou really wish I had asked, or
anything, uh any last momentthoughts you want to share with

(01:56:48):
uh with our listeners before wego?

SPEAKER_03 (01:56:51):
You know, I I I think more the only thing is
it's safe to go to Kimchatka.
It's gonna be an opportunity, agreat experience.
And and you know what?
If people can't don't feelcomfortable this year, things
are gonna change.
Next year we'll be there.
Nothing's gonna change on ourend.

(01:57:14):
I'm happy to take in two years.
Whatever, you know, if peoplewant to see a really crazy
beautiful, incredible flyfishing wilderness.
That's the place, man.
Yeah.
That's about it's my last pitch.

SPEAKER_00 (01:57:33):
Well, I I get it.
It's one of those places that Ialways thought I would just go
when I was working at Orvis, andthen things just changed in and
my world.
And then and Jeremy, the guy whoworked for me, you know, he's
like, okay, Jeremy, I guess Iguess you're going.
I didn't go, but it's it's stillon my list.
So and and I would be I wouldnot hesitate if I had the

(01:57:55):
financial wherewithal.
I would not hesitate to go rightnow.
I would go with you in aheartbeat.
Um, but I'm not waiting for Ithink well, yeah, I it's it's
just one of those things.
Yeah, well, I appreciate it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So all right, cool.
Well, hopefully I'll see youthere or somewhere in person at
some point in the future.

(01:58:15):
Well, thank you so much.
It is a fascinatingconversation, and uh, I really,
really enjoyed it.
It's fun catching up with afellow angler and sharing some
fishing stories.
So let's do it again soon.

SPEAKER_03 (01:58:24):
Thanks, Jason.

SPEAKER_00 (01:58:25):
I really appreciate it.
Have a good day.
All right, you too.
Bye.

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Adventure Travel with William Blair - The Best of the Wild

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Adventure Travel with William Blair - The Best of the Wild