Ep 60: Guiding in Alaska, with Chris Ballerini
Chris Ballerini is a guide in the Bristol Bay area of Alaska, and also my former coworker. Although he now pursues his love of music full time, he did manage to get up to Alaska for a month to go back to the guide life this fall. We recorded this episode just before he flew out, and he filled me in on what goes on in an Alaska fly fishing camp, including some great stories of bears and helicopter trips!
Instagram: @ chris.ballerini
Band website: Six Fox Whiskey
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fish in the backcountry. This is episode 60 with Chris Ballerini on guiding in Alaska. I actually, so I usually just like ask my guests how they got started in fishing, but for a lot of my friends I already know, but I actually realized I don't know how you got into fishing in the first place. Like we met guiding and that was it. How did you first get introduced to fly fishing?
Chris
That was pretty much it.
Katie
That was it?
Chris
As far as fly fishing, you were there for the whole journey, really.
Katie
That's funny. I didn't know that.
Chris
Yeah. I fished casually growing up, but it was more just an excuse to go hang out with friends. Did a lot of fishing with shiners for bass and stuff like that. I never really got into the gear or never really tried to get good at it or anything. And then when I moved to Colorado, I met Sanchez working for Vale. And, you know, he was I was wasn't sure what I was going to do for the wintertime because it was a seasonal job. And Sanchez was like, dude, you should come work. You should come guide like at Sasquatch and Estes. And I was like, I don't I don't know how to like I don't I don't even know how to cast a fly rod, man. Like, what are you talking about? And he convinced me, he took me to Antero Reservoir and taught me how to cast a fly rod and then that summer I was there just kind of faking it until I figured it out and you you were right there with me.
Katie
It's kind of crazy how many people there started like started fly-fishing the first day they started guiding which is great but I mean it's not like you're leading trips or anything you're kind of like shadowing almost and you know helping people with their knots and tangles and stuff like that it's not like you're just taking it a group out and and being like now I'm gonna be the expert here.
Chris
Right. Yeah, because I was in the same boat when I started.
Katie
I was like I haven't held a fly rod before.
Chris
Right. Yeah, I mean I just kind of faked it until I figured it out and you know I found with Sasquatch and when I ended up guiding in Alaska that it's way more about just being able to deal with people and being able to manage a group and manage time and just being able to have conversations with people and relate to them like more so than like technical fishing prowess. I mean obviously you want to be able to get people on fish but yeah it seems like that was a bigger part of you know what allowed me to you know to guide in different places and stuff like that.
Katie
Yeah I feel like assuming that you've got the you know the ability to catch fish on like wherever you're guiding it's it becomes at some point much more about can you show them a good time can you keep them entertained can you teach them something? It's like I don't know I there's a lot of people out there that I think I think we were talking about this recently where they are like the best they're like the best anglers in the world but if they can't communicate that well or can't can't convey it to the person they're teaching it's like it doesn't really go anywhere. And you can be like a mediocre fisherman not that you know guides should be not good at fishing but like you can be mediocre and be really good at explaining what you're doing and you can get people on like tons of fish the first day out.
Chris
Right.
Katie
Yeah so how did you go from Sasquatch up to Alaska?
Chris
I guided two seasons with you guys and I think I became a lead guide like during that first season somehow. Just figured out how to run the casting class and I just was able to like manage the trips and stuff I guess. But um yeah then Joe emailed us I think at one point saying that…do you know Ben Paschal?
Katie
I know of him. I don't know him personally.
Chris
So he, I believe he guided at the camp that I guide at. And he had guided for Joe in the past and he just had gotten an email. Ben had forwarded an email from the owner of Epic in Alaska saying they were looking for guides. And Joe forwarded it to us and I applied and had a conversation with Russ and got the job. It was kind of crazy.
Katie
What was that like? Like finding out that you're gonna go to Alaska to guide? Because I feel like, you know, even the first time we got started guiding, it was exciting. But you're like already in Colorado, which is kind of like, "Okay, I'm gonna try this new gig." Versus traveling to what feels like another country almost.
Chris
Yeah, I mean, it was super exciting and super nerve-wracking too. You know, I made sure in speaking with with Russ, the owner at Epic Angling, that I was like, "Dude, I've never done this before. I've been guiding for trout, but I don't know a single thing about how to catch a salmon." And he was like, "Oh, no, dude. You'll be perfect. We'll help you figure it out." And so the first couple weeks up there, I was pretty nervous and anxious about it, about I didn't want to look like I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
Katie
Despite the fact that you didn't know what you were doing. Mike: Despite the fact that I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
Chris
Yeah.
Katie
I feel like a lot of people have to be in that boat, though, going up there.
Chris
Yeah. I'd say so. No. I was really excited, because I think, at that point in my life, and probably even now, I was just looking for new and exciting experiences and I didn't know what I wanted to "be" when I grew up. I still don't. But it was just something super exciting that came across the table and I threw my name in the hat and ended up making it up there. I think after talking to Russ about the whole process, because I know some other people at Sasquatch, applied for it and stuff too, and I was by no means the most experienced one. And I think it was more just a personality fit because you're up there with six guys for four months, living in tents, and the only other people you see are clients that come up. So it's like you got to get along with other people and you can't have too big of an ego. it's just more so I guess about being able to get along with everybody and work hard and get the job done up there.
Katie
It's kind of a nerve-wracking thing as the owner of that to be like, "Okay, I'm going to hire these people. They're going to come up and then what if they get a bad apple?" That just seems like a really stressful situation to have a bad apple in.
Chris
He's gotten bad apples for sure.
Katie
How does that go down?
Chris
I'm pretty sure that last season or the season before someone went up there and just left after like two weeks.
Katie
Oh really?
Chris
He was like, "I'm out of here." And kind of screwed over the rest of the staff for the season, you know, because basically nobody got any days off after that. Because the guides kind of rotate and one person gets to stay back every three days. still working when you're back at camp, like just kind of doing maintenance on the camp or, you know, working on whatever he needs you to work on. But, so yeah, he's got, you know, he's had that happen a few times. And then there's also been the camp that I work at is so remote that you can't, you can't really like drink or smoke pot or anything like that. Because if you like, you know, trip and fall, you could potentially be four days from emergency medical treatment. You know, if the weather's bad, then no one can really get out to us over the mountains, even in a helicopter. So he's had people who drank too much or like, you know, would bring their own booze and just get hammered up there. And it's just not safe. We're all carrying guns all day long. And we're kind of part of our job is to keep the clients safe and, you know, safe from bears and just like safe in general. So yeah there's definitely bad apples. I think it's part of the part of the game.
Katie
Yeah I feel like everywhere like gets bad apples it just seems like other places can kind of you know rethink things restructure get someone else filled in because you know like in Estes it's not like it'd be hard to find somebody else even if it's just like hey we need someone to cover the shop while we send more people out or whatever but it's like we're that far out you can't just call someone up and be like hey.
Chris
Right. I mean, I think he's had to do that several times. I want to say he's been doing it like 16 or 17 years, maybe a little bit, maybe almost 20 years. He's been running the camp. And yeah, I think he's had to deal with that a few times where like, I, cause I would get, you know, the last few seasons, I would get like random emails like, "Yo dude, any chance you can do the end of September or any chance you can come out for a couple weeks?" Because stuff like that always comes up. I haven't been able to go for so long, so I'm pretty fired up to be out there this year. I'm leaving on Tuesday.
Katie
Oh, you leave on Tuesday?
Chris
Yeah.
Katie
For how long? Do you say a month?
Chris
Yeah. Normally, in past seasons when I've worked there, you go from June to October, so it's more like four months. And then I just lucked out this year and was able to jump in. There was one guy who could only work the first half of the season and I was able to jump in and do the second half. But when quarantine hit with everything going on and my band kind of stopped working as much, the first thing that crossed my mind was like, "I have to go back to Alaska. Why have I not been in five years?"
Katie
Okay, so that answers my question. Is your band just not playing as much right now?
Chris
No, we are. of getting back on the horse now, although the winter is kind of up in the air. We're not sure what the latest COVID surge is going to do to our activity this winter, but yeah, we pretty much didn't do anything for a year. And then in this past spring, we were able to start playing shows again and stuff.
Katie
So you guys are just taking a break while you're gone for the month, or is…
Chris
Yeah practicing and writing and stuff, but I don't think they're going to play any shows while I'm gone. Yeah, they were. I was actually really, really grateful that they were supportive of me and trying to leave for a month, like kind of right when we're getting back into playing a lot again. But everybody in the band knows how much I, you know, I'm always taught. I feel like in every conversation, I end up finding some way to reference Alaska. Like, I'm just obsessed with it. And it's the coolest place I've ever been. And they know how much I want to go back. everybody was like really supportive and letting me bounce for a month.
Katie
That's cool. I guess a month probably isn't that terrible too. I mean I'm sure you could fill it in with some shows but it's not like you're trying to ditch for half a year during like the busiest time of the year and just leave it hanging.
Chris
Right, exactly.
Katie
So how do you get to like I didn't realize how remote you were. I kind of assumed you were out of some sort of lodge or something and maybe you're going out on like short expeditions and coming back to it. I didn't realize you were just like living out there. How do you how do you get out there? Are you helicoptered in or boated in or how does that work?
Chris
Yeah so we I fly from Boston to Anchorage usually through Seattle and then or through somewhere else on the west coast and then I fly from Anchorage to King Salmon which is the airport hub of that whole like bay fishing area where all the commercial a lot of the commercial salmon fishing is done.
Katie
Is this like Bristol Bay area?
Chris
Yeah in Bristol Bay So then from King Salmon we take either a fixed wing, a small fixed wing plane, or a helicopter over the mountains to the Pacific side of the peninsula to our camp. It's like, I think it's like 160 miles to our camp. And that all depends on weather and tides. If the tides are right and the weather is clear enough, then we'll take a fixed wing plane, which is much more affordable to fly in. and we land right on the, at the, below our camp, which is like kind of up on a ridge, is a big tidal flat. And at low tide, it's like a river flowing through the flat. And at high tide, it's like a big lake. So when the tide's right, a couple hours around low tide, you can land a fixed-wing plane right on the tidal flat there. So we'll do that. If the weather's good, if not, we'll take a helicopter. And we build like a helipad over there for it to land on.
Katie
That's cool.
Chris
Yeah, it's really cool.
Katie
Is it like a permanent camp like what or do they set it up for just the the season? What kind of tents are we talking about?
Chris
Yeah, so it's they build it Yeah that's one of the reasons why I feel sort of strange about coming in so late in the season this time because I missed all of Like the hardest work of the season
Katie
Sounds ideal
Chris
Yeah, right. We'll see how the other guys feel It's it's funny like they're gonna they're probably gonna be wiped from two months of guiding and working and I'm gonna be like every night after work.
Katie
Well that's cool though for them I bet just having somebody come in who's not drained so like you'll be gung-ho to like get out and get after it.
Chris
Yeah for sure yeah I'm excited to be out there but um what was your last question?
Katie
Like what kind of tents are you in? Like is this like a permanent setup?
Chris
Oh yeah so it's on National Refuge land so we can't have we can only have one permanent structure and it's basically like we call it the cache but it's like a shed and at the beginning at the end of the season everything that we have gets packed into that shed. It's like a crazy game of Tetris, like from floor to ceiling, every ounce of space is used up storing all our stuff. We have like all the tents, all the sleeping bags, commercial grade stoves and stuff, and sinks, and a water heater, and all sorts of stuff all gets packed into there. And then we live in these weather ports. They're like tents with super strong aluminum framing and we anchor them into the ground. They have a few layers of vinyl siding around them so it's a pretty legit weatherproof tent. Even in crazy storms and stuff out there, they do just fine. So that stuff all gets set up at the beginning of the season and then broken down. At the beginning of camp, at the front of the camp, there's a huge cook tent where the cooks and everyone eats. And that's maybe like, I don't know how big it is, maybe like 20 by 15 or something like that. So it's pretty big. And then there's, I think, six or seven guest tents that are smaller than that. And you put two guests in each tent. And we build like platforms out of plywood and two by fours for people to, we have these like pretty thick sleeping bags we put on top and then they're just in a, sorry, sleeping pads. And then there are just a sleeping bag on top of that. And then there's an outhouse tent. So we dig a big hole for the outhouse and we have like a plywood frame and with a toilet seat on it and stuff that goes over that. So it's actually not too bad. You know, you can kind of wake up and do your business in the morning, like overlooking the whole title flat, which is really cool.
Katie
That's cool.
Chris
Yeah, and then there's a dry tent where we store like waiters and stuff. There's a wood stove that we put in the dry tent another wood stove in the cook tent and then there's a shower tent and we have a water system that we build from a creek from like a spring fed creek above the camp and it's all it's like gravity powered I guess like the all the pressure comes from gravity I think you get one psi for every two and a half I don't know if it's inches or feet that it goes down but anyways we just have this crazy water system that goes from a creek down through a bunch of filters into the cook tent and then into the shower tent. It gives us all our water pressure and then we have propane to heat the water. We have lots of propane tanks coming in and out and all our electricity comes from solar panels.
Katie
This is a crazy setup.
Chris
You're kind of bumming it but you're kind of not bumming it.
Katie
It sounds pretty luxurious.
Chris
Yeah, I mean it's pretty sick. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's like a kid's summer camp for adults. It's like Boy Scouts on crack. It's really cool.
Katie
Is that how you advertise it?
Chris
Yeah, that's the headline on the website.
Katie
Like Boy Scouts but on crack. How long does it take to set it all up, like at the beginning of the season?
Chris
It takes like two weeks to set up.
Katie
Really?
Chris
Yeah. And like 10 days to break down, something like that.
Katie
How are guests getting in? Are they also flying in like a little airplane?
Chris
Yeah, every Saturday the clients fly in.
Katie
So it's a week-long trip every time?
Chris
Yeah.
Katie
Okay.
Chris
Yeah. It's nine clients that come in every week. There's three clients to every one guide usually for a day on the river or on the flat or on the beach or out in the bay on the boat, wherever you end up fishing that day. And the helicopter actually comes back out on Thursdays during the silver season, which is what I'm going in for in September. Comes back out and brings us groceries. And then the helicopter stays for two nights. And we jump in the helicopter and heli fish. Like we go to fish other bays in the area.
Katie
Like while it's there?
Chris
Yeah, the neighboring bays, which is that's like the coolest part of the whole experience, just getting to fly in the helicopter like over through all these crazy, you know, there's like tons of waterfalls and glaciers and volcanoes and stuff. It's a pretty wild place to be and yeah it's funny I always thought of Alaska as this kind of cold barren landscape and it's really lush and green on the coast. It's almost like Hawaii or something at the beginning of the season especially and then and then everything starts to color up in the fall. It's really really pretty like the whole hillside and all the tundra and everything starts to turn like reds and yellows.
Katie
I was kind of surprised to hear that the season went through October I would have guessed it's more like a June to September season. Is October starting to get pretty chilly?
Chris
It doesn't go through October I feel like maybe it goes into the first week of October sometimes but it's pretty much at the end of September it's pretty much done.
Katie
Is it starting to get pretty cold by that time?
Chris
Yeah yeah it'll be it'll be pretty chilly in September especially towards the end of the month and at night at night it'll get like into the 30s sometimes.
Katie
Oh that's not too bad. I mean that's kind of like here too.
Chris
Yeah it's there's a there's a difference though I think like being on the coast and then being in the middle of the country as far as temperature goes.
Katie
Is it colder there? Like a colder 30s?
Chris
Yeah I think so because there's so much because there's so much moisture in the air. I found it crazy in Colorado when I moved out there from Boston that you know it could be like zero degrees or ten degrees like a sunny day in the winter and I'd still be out skiing and I wouldn't be worried about all. Whereas like in Boston if it's below 20 like I don't want to go outside.
Katie
Yeah.
Chris
And I would never go skiing. I mean maybe I would but and I think it has to do with humidity, moisture in the air.
Katie
Kind of enhances anything.
Chris
Yeah like that's another thing about being up in Alaska is nothing gets dry ever. Like we don't bring any cotton clothing. It's all quick dry stuff. Like if you brought a cotton t-shirt and it got wet it might stay wet for like a week or two weeks.
Katie
That sounds maddening. Like just being wet is I feel like it's just one of the worst feelings and to not be able to…
Chris
Everything’s wet. Like I hang up all my socks and stuff like they're all smart wool quick-dry socks or whatever and I hang them up around the tent and then you go to put them on in the morning and like they're always wet. Like they always feel wet.
Katie
Is that just from the moisture in the air? Is it actually wet or does it have that like damp like musty feeling from just being in the wet air?
Chris
It has that damp musty feeling. unless it actually got wet. Yeah it definitely gets cold at the end of the season. I'll take my changed clothes for the next day and I'll put it under my sleeping bag so that it's like not freezing cold when I put it on early in the morning when we get up. And we'll take like stones from the beach and put them next to the wood stove like around dinner time and then stick them in the bottom of our sleeping bag, keep our feet warm and stuff.
Katie
What kind of stuff are you eating there?
Chris
The food is really good.
Katie
I figured, based on how luxurious your camp is, I'm like they have to be cooking good food.
Chris
Yeah I mean there's a professional chef up there for the whole season and his job is just to make dank food all the time.
Katie
Are you eating fish? Are you eating like any of the fish you catch?
Chris
Yeah I think usually three or four nights a week sometimes more we'll have fish and yeah we don't like because it's so hard logistically to get in and out and it costs so much to put any sort of weight on the planes going in and out of there like it's all planned very carefully we don't send any fish home or anything with clients but we do eat we'll keep maybe like 20 pounds of fish a couple nights a week and we'll eat salmon and I get I usually get sick of the salmon after like a month or two even though the chef switches up the way that he cooks it but we also get small halibut out in the bay and I never get sick of halibut and we also get We get rock bass, which are kind of like the black sea bass that we get over here on the East Coast and they're delicious. And then the other few nights of the week, it's like whatever the chef decides on, whatever he orders. You know, sometimes it's like a steaks or chicken parm or something. The breakfast is always really good. The chef does like a big breakfast in the morning. And then lunch, the guides just make sandwiches for the clients and it's just kind of more of like your average side of the river camping lunch, like cold cut sandwich and chips and in a drink.
Katie
So would you say the food is better or worse than the YMCA breakfast?
Chris
Oh man, the Pondo. It's much better.
Katie
I feel like I can still taste that food. Like I can still picture what it tastes like because it was the same food every day. It would be the same food for days at a time. It's like, oh here's this reheated for the fourth time and like turned into a soup. That was always the sketchiest. You're like, oh you had burgers last week and now you're having burger soup. Oh that was the worst. Actually that's the only time I've ever gotten true food poisoning. Allie and I both, I don't know if you were there that year that Allie and I both got food poisoning and missed the 4th of July.
Chris
I feel like I got food poisoning every time I ate there. Like I'd be running for the bathroom 20 minutes after I ate every single time.
Katie
This was like true food poisoning like I couldn't get out of bed and like couldn't walk and Allie and I were just like laid up in these - we like finally dragged ourselves out to the 4th of July party and we're just sitting in lawn chairs with like sunglasses on like hot sweating or I guess cold sweating. It was just it was awful and then we found out that like a hundred people got food poisoning that day from the from the YMCA.
Chris
But it was free.
Katie
But it was free so we took it. So tell me about the the fishing up there. Like you said you're fishing for salmon. Is it all salmon? Do you do trout as well? And like what kind of techniques are you using?
Chris
Yeah so there's there's two different camps I'll just talk about I guess to start just the one that I'm going to this year it's called the Safari Camp and that's the one that's out on the coast on the ocean and you're basically targeting either salmon or a dolly varden you ever caught a dolly?
Katie
No, I've seen pictures.
Chris
They're so cool, you’d be obsessed with dollies.
Katie
Like the way they look or the way they fight or what is it about them?
Chris
Everything.
Katie
They look like a brook trout on crack.
Chris
Yeah, this is the crack episode of Fish Untamed. Yeah, there's sea roan brook trout in the char family, and they get really big, and they're super hungry, and they chase everything, and they fight real hard on a five-weight or a six-weight rod. It's a pretty good matchup. In the rivers that we fish, like the ones that we hike to from our camp, they're around I'd say they're maybe 15 to 20 inches or something, maybe up in the low 20s, but then there's a couple of spots that we fly out to where it's like all 30-inch dollies and they eat mice and stuff on top and eggs. They follow the salmon in and eat the salmon eggs and the salmon flesh when the salmon spawn. So, yeah, you're basically either targeting dollies or salmon. The cool thing about the camp that I'm going to, the safari camp, is there's a bunch of different water that we fish. So, you can kind of employ different techniques depending on where you're fishing that day. And we try to kind of split it up during the week so that, you know, different groups of different trios of clients are going to different areas and kind of getting a taste of everything that the camp has to offer. So, right in front of camp is that tidal flat I was telling you about. low tide it's like a big river and the salmon are just stacked up in there. You're mostly swinging streamers, usually pretty heavy streamers like pinks, purples, chartreuse and stuff like that. And then you can also fish that flat at high tide which is almost it's more like sight casting. You won't catch as many fish because they're not as concentrated but it's pretty cool to we can even like pull around in the little we have inflatable boats like a 16 foot and 18 foot with outboards on the back they have like metal frames and then inflatable pontoons so we can pull around and cast it salmon that way and you're usually using like an eight weight for the salmon and there's three different kinds of salmon sorry I'm kind of bouncing around a bit There's pink salmon, chum salmon, and silvers at this safari camp. And then you'll catch sockeye once in a while. The pinks and chums are usually pretty thick early season. Pinks are smaller, but they're still super fun. I want to say they're like four to six pounds, maybe four to eight pounds, something like that. Chum are a little bigger. I feel like they can get up to 10 pounds. and then the silvers are like maybe 6 to 12. The silvers are kind of what everybody's hoping for. I'd say they're the best sport fish next to Kings. I don't know, the Kings get bigger but I think the silvers are more fun. They jump a lot. The silvers will eat topwater.
Katie
So they're actually eating. You're not, you're not, like I would assume that...
Chris
No, they're not eating. They're not…
Katie
really? So why are they taking things on the surface?
Chris
I think it's like an aggression strike is what I've heard it's like when they enter so they're they're swimming around in the Atlantic so they're born in this river and then they swim around in the Atlantic Ocean like all over the place in a huge school for…
Katie
um... Atlantic or Pacific?
Chris
Pacific. (Laughing) Yeah they go to the Atlantic and come back.
Katie
I was like that's a long journey. They're like we hate this ocean. We're going across the world.
Chris
A big salmon run through like the Panama Canal. Yeah, so they're swimming around for a few years and then they come back and they come to the same river that they were born in usually. And once they enter fresh water, they stop eating and they kind of get into spawning mode. they first get there they're like super chrome silver colored and bright and full of energy. They still have sea lice on them which means they just came from the ocean from the salt. But once they enter they stop eating and then they slowly make their way up into the little rivers that flow into that tidal flat which is another area we fish. You know we'll hike up to like three miles up into this these different river valleys to fish for dollies and salmon. And as as they, the whole like process is pretty wild. When they enter fresh water, they stop eating and they start burning all their fat and then eventually all their muscle to get, just to make it upriver to the right spot where the riverbed is right for them to spawn. And then they use their last ounce of energy to spawn and then they die. And then when they're, when the babies are born in the spring, like the first thing they eat is like their parents' dead flesh, you know, it's like this crazy circle of life. And the dead salmon revitalizes the whole, you know, it's like the energy for the whole ecosystem. All the birds and vegetation and, you know, bears, obviously, and salmon sharks and all sorts of stuff up in there.
Katie
Do you use any flies that mimic the, like the flesh?
Chris
Yeah, we will use flesh flies for the Dolly Varden.
Katie
What does that look like?
Chris
It's like a white and orange, like, bunny leech type deal. Like a white and orange streamer. Yeah, like a shorter white and orange streamer. We'll use eggs for the dollies too and different colored streamers. White streamers seem to work pretty well.
Katie
So the dollies are actually eating?
Chris
Yeah, the dollies are eating.
Katie
Because they're not going up to spawn and die.
Chris
Right.
Katie
Okay.
Chris
I believe they spawn up there and then continue living. But yeah, so I don't know where else I was going with that. There's a couple other areas we fish. you can fish the beach. There's a, if you go across the tidal flat, there's like a sandy beach that goes all around the edge of this bay for many miles. Um, and you can walk along that beach and sightcast to salmon that are kind of making their way along the coast, uh, before they enter the tidal flat to spawn. Um, so that's pretty cool. And then we have the, those two inflatable boats and we'll take them out into the bay when it's calm enough and, uh, jig for halibut and sea bass, usually just with conventional gear.
Katie
It's kind of cool. It sounds like there's not like a one standard day like what people are doing. It sounds like you've got a lot of different opportunities of like what you can do at any given time.
Chris
Yeah, for sure. There's a lot of different options and especially when you go hiking up the river like oftentimes we'll bring two rods or one rod that's kind of in the middle like a six weight or seven weight where you can have fun. Like still get a bend in the rod with a dolly, but if you hook into a big silver you'll be okay.
Katie
Is it more based on like what the situation is at the time or like what the guest actually wants to do? Like are you just deciding what to do based on the tides and everything or are you asking like hey? What do you want to catch? How do you want to fish and that determines?
Chris
Yeah, we'll start in the morning And I think usually the first couple days my boss will kind of decide or the lead guide will kind of decide like We're gonna send these guys over here these guys over here, but then as the week goes on We'll ask them in the morning like, you know, so what are you guys into and then we might end up with Splitting some groups up with people who want to go fish for dollies or people who want to stay in the flat There's also limitations like some people are we get some older clients Or people who can't get around very well And they might spend most of the week on the title flat in front of camp because they can't hike way up into the river Valley until we do the the heli fishing stuff.
Katie
Yeah, what's a what's the bear situation? like are they like all over the place or is it pretty rare to see one? I know you said you carry guns.
Chris
Yeah they're everywhere. Yeah we'll see like I don't know we'll see a bunch every day like sometimes you'll see like ten bears in a day on the river.
Katie
Wow. Are they interested in you guys at all or is it one of those things where like you've got it you've got the gun for safety but the bears are like mostly more interested in the salmon so like it's not really that big a conflict with humans.
Chris
Yeah I mean for the most part they're just eating and we we follow a lot of precautions and do a lot of things to make sure that they don't associate us with food but for the most part they're just doing their own thing. We'll come across an aggressive bear once in a while and have to decide kind of how to deal with it but for the most part they're just doing their own thing. Sometimes you'll run into a young bear that has just been kicked out by its mother like a two or three year old bear and they're just they kind of don't know the lay of the land yet and they're a little curious like a puppy or something and that's those are the ones that we'll get walking through camp and stuff like checking out the smells and stuff like that. Yeah we carry most of the guys carry shotguns. My boss has this giant handgun it's like a 454 and in the shotguns the first round that I usually have out is a popper shell and it's like a flying M80 So that's like if there's a bear that's being aggressive or if you feel like you need to create some separation between the clients and the bear, you might lob one of those things up and it'll explode and scare them off. Most of the time, just yelling, just waving your arms and yelling will send them running. We'll also carry a foghorn sometimes or an empty trash bag and you can pop the trash bag. And then after that it's usually just slugs. If shit hits the fan, you gotta be ready to use them.
Katie
Have you ever had a sketchy bear situation that you had to go beyond just popping off one of the, I don't remember what you called them, the caps that you usually start with?
Chris
No. No, as far as I know, no one at our camp has ever had to shoot to kill or anything like that. I think there have been instances where you might hit one in the ass with birdshot or something just to make sure that it like knows like, "Hey dude, stop walking through our camp." Yeah. But yeah, no, it's mostly just shooting those popper shells. And I mean, I've had one sort of sketchy encounter. Not that I didn't have to shoot the gun or anything, but we have the two neighboring bays where we heli fish, we have little caches like buried. Like usually it's like a like a 50-gallon drum with like some emergency equipment in it you know like some spam and fire starter or something if we were to ever get stranded over there and when I first started working there my boss wanted me to know where it was and how to get there so we went over for a heli fishing day and he took my clients and told me you know how to get there he was like hey you know take this little it was a little thread that went off the main river and there were super thick alders on either side it was maybe 10 feet wide or something like that, so it was pretty scary. So I had to walk by myself down this thread that eventually made it back to the main river to find out where this thing was buried so that I would know where to get it if I needed to find it. So I was walking through and like he told me to kind of have, you know, have my gun ready to go, like don't have it slung over your shoulder, like have it kind of locked and loaded, because it's very tight and you can see the the paths that the bears make along the river and there's like dead salmon carcasses and stuff everywhere so it's kind of eerie. So I made it all the way through this thread and there was a big hump to get that I had to walk over to get to back to the main river when I got back to the like the clearing there and I walked up over the hump and maybe I don't know 10-15 yards away was like the biggest bear that I'd ever seen the whole time that I was up there. I don't know how big it was like 800 pounds or something like that. And I was just like, holy shit. And I just stopped and he didn't even notice me. So I was like, I didn't know what to do. And I started fumbling through my stuff and I got my fog horn and I blasted off my fog horn and he turned and just like looked at me and then just went back to doing this thing. And I like tried, I like shot off a popper shell and he just kind of like glanced at me and I just, I didn't know what to do. Um, so I just kept yelling at him and then I eventually just like walked way down river and cross below them and went up but they're pretty they're pretty big scary things.
Katie
Yeah I feel like I wouldn't I wouldn't know what to do in that situation either because you kind of just assume that the bear is gonna react to I don't know the noise and the movement and stuff like that and just be gone. You don't really consider what's gonna happen or the other options it's like coming at you and it's like okay I like in that case I'd shoot it if it's you know really posing a threat to me but if it's just standing there like not caring. You're like, "I don't know what to do here."
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. They say if you if you shoot a bear in Alaska you better have claw marks on your on your body somewhere because they're so well protected up there. Like if you shoot a bear and kill it they'll have a whole investigation and like a whole team flies in to figure out what would happen because they're so protected up there.
Katie
I mean that makes sense but it's like I feel like if the bear gets close enough you to start roughing you up you might not really have the ability to shoot it anymore.
Chris
Yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah, it makes you wonder like if bear spray would cut it.
Katie
Do you carry bear spray too or just just the firearm?
Chris
Only like around camp. If we have to go work on the water system or something and we're just taking like a short jaunt we'll throw some bear spray on our on our belt or if we're like working on something close to camp sometimes we'll just bring the bear so we don't have to carry the gun around. But most of the time we carry the gun.
Katie
What's the rest of the wildlife situation like up there? Like you see a bunch of moose or anything or is it pretty like bear heavy?
Chris
Yeah we see moose, caribou, we see wolves.
Katie
Oh really? That's cool.
Chris
Eagles everywhere. Yeah wolves, foxes. Yeah it's super cool. We had some moose like run through the middle of our camp one time. It was pretty crazy. And we'll see like where our camp overlooks this title flat. So we'll see a lot of stuff go down on the flat in front of us. I think my boss once saw two bears fight to the death on the title flat and then the one that won ate the one that lost.
Katie
Oh, geez. That's crazy.
Chris
Yeah, we saw like, I think it was a caribou was on the, he was in the middle of the title flat And he just stayed there, like, all day long. And we couldn't figure out, like, what was going on. And he was just standing in the middle of the title flat, like, even when the tide came up. And then the next morning, we woke up, and he was still there. And eventually, we noticed that there were wolves, like, around the outsides of the title flat, just kind of, like, waiting for him to make a move. And then the next night, we woke up, and he wasn't there anymore. So who knows what happened.
Katie
You want to find out what happened in the end of that story.
Chris
Right. Yeah, I don't know.
Katie
What's the, like that time of year, is it just light out like most of the day? Are you waking up when it's light and going to bed when it's still light out?
Chris
At the end of the season it gets dark at night. And the stars are incredible. It's so pretty at night because you're so far away from any sort of light pollution. Like the entire sky is blanketed in stars and you can see a shooting star every couple You see like satellites going through and you can see, what's it called, Andromeda? It's like the galaxy. Yeah, you can see the Milky Way and stuff. It's really pretty. Early in the season, like if I were going there in June, it'd be light out pretty much all day long. It gets like slightly darker in the middle of the night. So we would just sleep with like beanies pulled over our face or whatever. It's a pretty weird phenomenon. We're pretty far south. In Alaska, I think as you go further north, the difference is exaggerated. You get the 24-hour nights and stuff in the wintertime as you go further north.
Katie
That's got to be hard to handle when it's just dark 24/7. I'm assuming it goes for at least weeks in that state and months in a pretty similar to it state.
Chris
Yeah, I mean I know it's hard living up there for those who do it all year round. I know the rates of alcohol abuse and suicide and drug, like other drugs and stuff are astronomical up there.
Katie
Makes sense.
Chris
I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.
Katie
So what's the name of your outfit and like what's it cost to come up there for a week?
Chris
It's called Epic Angling and Adventure and for the camp that I'm going to I think it's around $8,000 for the week.
Katie
That's not terrible.
Chris
That's like without the flights and stuff and costs may have gone up since I haven't been up in five years But I think that's what it was. Yeah, it's cool I mean you get a you get a good mix of people who Are super wealthy and do a couple of trips like this a year
Katie
Oh, geez
Chris
and then people who are like who have been saving for a long time just to go on this like ultimate Alaska trip with their dad or something.
Katie
Yeah
Chris
You meet lots of really cool people up there.
Katie
That would be an interesting like set of clientele to have Like the people who've been saving for their whole lives to go up there mixed in with the people who can just like throw away $8,000 like it's nothing.
Chris
Yeah. Yeah, it's funny I mean like ninety nine point nine percent of the people that come up there are really really really cool regardless of their socioeconomic status, you know, I think it just someone who wants to go on a trip like that is probably Outdoorsy and kind of down-to-earth and willing to put their phone down for a week, right? That's my favorite part about the whole experience and probably what I'm looking forward to most is not having Instagram and Facebook and all that bullshit like at the ready. There's no phone service. There's no TV internet Newspapers like nothing so you just like a it's a great feeling, you know, once you once you loosen up after a few days It's a great feeling to just not have all that stuff like poking at you and beeping and buzzing all day long
Katie
Yeah, I heard a, I mean this probably happened to tons of people, but I heard a story of some guys who were on some sort of trip like that and they were there during 9/11 and when they came like they were on they're getting ready to come back home and they couldn't find like they couldn't figure out why their flight was canceled out of there because like I think after 9/11 they grounded everything. So they were like confused as to why they couldn't get their flight out and they came back and like imagine coming back from like a month of no service to find out like 9/11 happened you were gone.
Chris
Crazy
Katie
things like that can just happen in that time period and you have like no idea.
Chris
I got a story like that for you. I had a couple friends from high school just recently sailed around the world in a sailboat for like a year and they were in the middle of a 14-day or a 21-day sail when the COVID lockdown happened. They were getting random news forecasts. I don't know how you get it out there. I want to say it's like Morse code or something. They would get messages once in a while that's like, "The United States has closed its borders." Like, "China, virus in China." They had no idea what was going on except for these little blips. And then when they finally got to their destination, they found out what was going on. So it was pretty wild. And they ended up doing the rest of their trip. They were with these groups of other people who were in the same boat and they were all kind of like quarantined together, kind of like they had their own little section in whatever port they were at. The dude actually wrote a book I haven't read yet. I don't know if it's getting, I think it's getting published. His name is David Joy. Yeah, he'd be a pretty cool person to have on. I mean, he wouldn't be talking about fly fishing, but pretty crazy story.
Katie
So were they aware of, because COVID was around for a little bit before it became a thing. I remember seeing a headline like, "Oh, strange virus found in China." It was a thing, but it hadn't expanded to being something that people were panicking about and getting locked down over. Were they aware that the virus existed and just weren't aware that things were getting locked down because of it? Or had they not heard anything about it?
Chris
I think so. I'm not positive on the timeline, but I think they must have known about it. then I'm pretty sure they were on that sale when when was it like third week in March or whatever when shit really started to hit the fan.
Katie
Yeah it went from just being some obscure thing in other countries to like people are getting sent home from work and you can't go go anywhere but the store kind of thing.
Chris
Yeah it's a crazy crazy time that we're living in right now.
Katie
Is that affected like your when you go up to Alaska is anything different due to coronavirus?
Chris
Yeah I mean I have to pass a COVID test on Sunday in order to even go. I'm nervous about that. I'm vaccinated and I've been being safe, but I could just walk into a gas station and get it, I suppose, and not know. That's the moment of truth. I just have to have a test within 72 hours because if somebody were to get COVID and go to camp, it would really screw things up for my boss. He would probably have to shut it down.
Katie
Yeah, and you can't just get fake pee.
Chris
Right. Yeah.
Katie
Just to wrap up, do you have any either horror stories or funny stories of weird clients you've gotten up there? Because I feel like, like you said, most people are just probably really cool, the type of person who wants to go up and do that. But I also feel like there's the 1% that are also just off their rocker and that's why they want to go up there.
Chris
Yeah. Well, I have one quick story and then one good story. So along those lines, I did find that there were people, and I found this at Sasquatch too, like you'd meet somebody at the beginning of a trip and be like, "Oh, fuck, this guy's an asshole. This is going to be tough." And then most of the time by the end of the Sasquatch trip, you'd be like, "Oh, he's not so bad." But a lot of times you'd still leave thinking they're assholes. But I found that pretty much every person that I met in Alaska that came on a trip, even if for the first three days I was like, "This guy sucks. I do not want to pretend to laugh at this guy's joke anymore." By the end of the trip you find out that most people are good people if you give them long enough to decompress and if you learn enough about why they might be acting the way that they're acting.
Katie
Yeah, or like they're super plugged in and high strung and it's like but a couple days in a tent kind of settles it down.
Chris
Yeah, and they stop reaching for their phone every ten minutes and stuff like that. But yeah, just as a cool story, one time we had crazy, it was this crazy storm coming and it was when the helicopter was staying with us and the whatever it was with like the tide and the winds, like there was going to be a super high tide overnight to the point where the little helicopter pad that we build down, but we have to, it has to be below the high tide mark because you can't land a helicopter in National Refuge Land, so he can't land in the middle of our camp. It has to be down the steps on this little pad that we made. Whatever it was with the tides and the winds and the storm, the pad was going to get washed away, basically. The helicopter had to last minute find a place to go. I volunteered. They needed someone to go with the pilot who is... Have you ever seen Grizzly Man?
Katie
Yeah.
Chris
He's the pilot in that movie with the mustache.
Katie
Oh, really? I don't I don't remember that pilot but I have to go back and watch it again.
Chris
Yeah, he's he's like a legend So he's an older guy like bigger guy with a mustache like probably in his 60s and So he asked me to it so I end up going with him in the middle of the night we just like jump in the helicopter in the middle of this storm with like 30 mile an hour winds and and have to find, there's like some spot that he knew of where we would be able to park for the night where it was like legal. I forget what it was like, some sort of private land or something. So we jump in his helicopter and like, I'm pretty scared 'cause it was scary. And where he's like, he's got, he's using his feet to steer it and he's using, he's got a joystick in his hand and then he's using his other hand for, with a joystick with the, to operate a spotlight like below the helicopter. he's like looking for like a place to land and like trying to find this spot with no map like nothing in the middle of the night and we end up like landing on a rock like on like a cliff like in the ocean to like wait for a second so we can try to find his bearings and I was like what the hell is going on and then eventually we we go back in a helicopter and we find this spot and we land and he shuts the helicopter down and he just he grabs he had a sleep apnea CPAP machine and he had like a car battery in the backseat and he just like grabs the battery like hooks up this like mask to his face and just like passes out and I'm just sitting in the passenger seat like in this crazy storm we're in like thick woods like looks super Barry and I was like what is so I like nudge them awake I was like dude what like should I go grab my gun like what are we gonna do if a bear comes out?" and he's like, "Oh, we'll just fire up the helicopter." and like and then he just like turns on his sleep apnea machine and falls asleep. So I was I was awake for the entire night just scared shitless like trying to sleep in the passenger seat of a helicopter and you know we made it till morning and came back and I had to guide the whole next day super tired but it was a cool experience nonetheless.
Katie
So you knew going out that you were just gonna be sleeping in the helicopter you just didn't expect it was gonna be like where it was and that this guy was gonna hook up like a Batman Bane type face mask and just pass out.
Chris
Yeah, to like a car battery and just fall asleep as if we were like at a Motel 6.
Katie
Well I'm sure he's used to that.
Chris
I think I thought we would be like up all night or something. I don't know. I don't know what I thought but yeah that guy's a legend.
Katie
That's hilarious. Well I assume you're gonna share some like pictures and stuff from your trip when you get back, check it out.
Chris
Yeah. Yeah, it's Chris dot Ballerini Like ballerina, but with an eye on the end and I guess if people want to check out the band, it’s Six Fox Whiskey, it’s named after the helicopter up there in Alaska and We'll be back at it soon and check out the check out Russell's website It's epic angling and adventure calm if you want to take a trip to Alaska and yeah, that's all I got Thanks so much for having me on
Katie
Yeah, just to clarify, are you guys mostly playing around Boston? Do you guys travel around at all?
Chris
We play mainly in the Northeast. We do plan on, we had a trip planned to Colorado last summer that didn't end up happening because of COVID. So I'll keep you in the loop when we end up out in Denver for sure.
Katie
Yeah, I'd love to come see you guys live.
Chris
Yeah.
Katie
Well, thanks for coming on. This is a lot of fun. The crack episode. The first of many crack episodes.
Chris
I'll have to come back on and talk about striper crack.
Katie
All right. Sounds good. All right, guys. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to head over to the website fishuntamed.com for all episodes and show notes. And also please subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. That'll get my episodes delivered straight to your phone. And also if you have not yet, please consider going over to Apple Podcasts and leaving a rating or review. very helpful for me and I'd greatly appreciate it. Other than that, thank you guys again for listening and I will be back in two weeks. Bye everybody!
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