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Tongass Guide Academy
The success of this program caught the attention of several other Alaska regions searching for the same education and employment opportunities for their youth; this year marked the first time the Guide Academy model was applied elsewhere.
The Bristol Bay Fly Fishing and Guide Academy was created to provide local indigenous youth with work force development opportunities for sustainable outdoor employment. In the past 15 academies, the program has turned out 183 graduates with approximately 25 of them holding full-time, seasonal employment at lodges in Bristol Bay. The success of this program…
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The True Cast – On Guides, Ghillies and the Great Ones
I now get asked, all the time, whether guides these days, on average, can stack up against the guides from a generation ago...
Twenty-some years ago, I wrote the book Castwork: Reflections of Fly-Fishing Guides and the American West with my cousin Andrew Steketee. It never got much commercial traction, but it did garner a cult following, and it got me discovered by Field & Stream. For all of you would-be authors out there, understand that a book…
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Lesson from the guide: cover the water
I’m a “freelance” fly fisher by trade. Even on new water, I tend to look for what appears to be familiar. Long, deep runs. Structure. Riffles. Tailouts. Rising fish. And when I see the latter, I become somewhat laser-focused. Rising fish are feeding fish, and feeding fish are eminently catchable. In the absence of rising…
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