Alaska is not always easy to access so you can still get a feeling of being the
first person to place your foot on that piece of tundra or the first person to
cradle that fish in your hand. That's really what the sport fishing industry
is about, giving people a taste of something that they can't have full time.
I'm Nancy Morris Lyon and I'm the lead instructor for the Bristol Bay Fly
Fishing and Guide Academy. I'm gonna put up assignments for tomorrow.
This Academy takes local young adults who are interested in getting into the
sport fishing industry in some form and allows them to have a week experience
learning how to fly fish, tie flies, cast a fly line, as well as learn customer
service skills and conservation skills and basically the mentality that
surrounds the sport fishing industry. If it applies to fly-fishing they learn it.
If you need any dry flies, mice patterns, leeches, smolts. Then we let them put what
they've got to work. So client day is essentially the final exam of the guide
Academy. So all week we've been teaching them how to fly fish, we've taught them
about customer service, safety and today they'll put all those
new skills to the test and they'll be expected to guide a member of the
community that they've never met before for a safe and fun day out on the water.
It's a good day out, we're gonna be catching some rainbows. It's all free to
the students, yep it is, and it's well paid off the minute I see one of them
out on the river fishing while I'm out there guiding during the summer it's awesome. They are
absolutely uniquely qualified to be the next generation of guides. They were born
and raised here, they know the stories from their ancestors, they can tell you
why the caribou migrate, where they migrate, when they migrate. When
the seals are going to be coming through. Those are all things that take
a lifetime of living here to learn and, you know, when you have guides coming
from the lower 48 even though they're marvelous and very knowledgeable about
fly fishing, they have a whole lot to learn about the area. The thing is I
never had that idea of becoming a fly fishing guide when I was a child.
You know, I grew up commercial fishing, I mean everyone commercial fishes and it's
not it's not even a question. So once I was introduced to the Academy it kind of
created that dream of, oh, you know there's something different, you know,
this is awesome! I want to come out here and be able to fish every day with new
people. So now that it's actually happening it's incredible. Yeah after I
came here, I fell in love with fishing and everything that goes into a lodge
like the management, hospitality, everything like that. I wouldn't want to
be in an office or anything. Being one of the three girls in the
Academy, it was kind of cool because you could just try to keep up with the boys
too and it wasn't that hard. Learning that I get to fly out to all these remote
places in a place I love and being able to help people catch trophy fish that a
lot of people in the world don't get to do is just something I find amazing.
This class, this particular one, the 10th anniversary class is just an example of
how incredibly well trained these guys are. These are remarkable young people.
At first I just wanted everybody to share my passion for the sport, but then I
realized very very quickly what I was actually teaching the kids and the
knowledge I was giving them was giving them multiple opportunities in an
industry that's growing everywhere in the world.
I would say there's another element that is important as well and it's the
cultural shift that has occurred to allow or embrace the notion of catch
and release fishing. Catch and release fishing was a concept that was foreign
to people as little as two generations ago. I mean, but it was an
incredibly courageous move on the part of some of the leaders to recognize
that and bless it, and say it's okay. And the caveat that they placed upon us and the
challenge they laid down for the instructors and the students is to make
sure we do it right. Fly fishing guides have been the ones to
really lead conservation movements. Bristol Bay's is going to have a lot of
tough management choices both when it comes to habitat and fish and, you know, I
think the more we can have these kids thinking creatively and thinking about
how to solve problems together, that's going to be best for the future of
Bristol Bay. I love doing it here because this is my home water. Obviously the
Naknek River is my home River, and it gives me the opportunity to share it
with the kids. I don't know I fell in love with it and I learned why
everyone's so passionate about it. You know, over the past couple of years
I've worked with people from Washington, from just places down south and you
know, they come up here and, you know, catching 12 grayling a day, a
couple rainbows is pretty normal over in Dillingham, and they're like 'how
many fish do you catch?!' 'What?!' and they're looking at all the salmon. I'm like
oh yeah, it's a really special place, you know?
Alaska to me has always been the stuff that's off the road system and
how those communities are sustained and what diverse opportunities they have, we
need to make the most of what is available, and certainly entry into the
sport fishery is one of them. In my mind that keeps it here, you know, it helps the
economy here and it helps sustain the people here. And you've got to consider
what Alaska would be... if we didn't have rural villages, Alaska wouldn't be Alaska