Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado. Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here’s your host, Scott Watley.
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado. Hey, we’ve got a great show in store for you. Great media, continuing to watch all the social media and all the hunting going on right now in our great state, and they’re seeing some great successes there, seeing a few disappointments where things didn’t go quite as planned.
But anyway, just good luck to everyone. And we are getting ready here for all the other season with muzzleloader and rifle season and all. But a couple of weeks ago, we came back from Montana, and my buddy David Fields joined us on the show.
And man, we had such a great hunt there in Montana with Crow Scout Outfitters. And our guide, actually, I asked him when we were there, I said, hey man, would you come on the show? And he said he would love to, so introduce our guide to you.
And I’m going to let him give us a lot of background of this whole deal with the reservation there that we were able to hunt on. But Elvin, welcome to the show, sir. How are you?
I am good.
Good, good deal, man. What’s the weather like there in Montana today?
It’s finally cooled down yesterday. We got a lot of rain and it’s sunshine now, but it’s like 70 degrees today.
Oh, good, man. I tell you what, you know, we live in a pretty state here in Colorado, and I mean, I love it here and all. But man, there’s something about Montana that is just unbelievable.
I mean, I was living a blessed area, my friend.
Oh, absolutely. Oh, sure.
Hey, give us a little background. And, you know, just growing up there and on the reservation and even some of the history you were telling us about, you know, with just relatives around the times of Custer and all that. Just give us a little background up there on the reservation.
You know, I’ve grown up my whole life here on the reservation. I’ve hunted here on the reservation my whole life. I didn’t start guiding to last since last year, but I’ve hunted and I guess I’ve guided picking relatives out and got them their animals.
And, you know, the Native American families are just so family oriented. Right. Everybody knows everybody.
Everybody’s family. People don’t leave this place because we’re a family. You know, we’re close.
I noticed everywhere else, you know, people leave. They go other cities and they’re not close. But Native Americans, man, that’s our thing is we’re close.
We’re a family.
Everybody’s one.
That’s how we survive because we’re so close to each other.
And sure, I mean, what a good thing that is. If America could be like that, Bud, we’d be we’d be a lot better off.
For sure.
So tell us, you were telling the kind of the structure there, a little bit of just how it’s set up and, you know, how the how the reservation is managed, so to speak, kind of walk us through that a minute.
Oh, yeah, we got our fishing game is we just kind of started it. I don’t know how long ago it started, but I was a fishing game officer for a while. It was just me.
But it’s tough, but it’s a good thing. We’re heading in the right direction.
I guess it’s just getting to know how to do things, how to organize things, how to. This is all a learning process for us, because as Native Americans, we never had to manage our game. It managed itself, and we never overhunted.
We never took more than and we needed to, you know, it’s just always about how to eat. But I guess as more people fill the earth, you know, you got to start managing stuff. And it’s just a learning process right now, I guess you would say.
Right. Now, is there, you mentioned there’s like a, is it termed a chief that it’s kind of over the reservation and there’s other people kind of under him that help in this management?
Yes, we do. We got a, we got a chairman.
Chairman, okay.
Which is like the chief of the Crow Tribe, but we all, he was, they get voted in by the people. And then they have their vice chairman and a secretary and a vice secretary. And then he just appoints people to run certain, certain things on the, let’s see, like fishing game.
He had to appoint somebody to run the, and manage the fishing game and start and get it in order. But the terms are short. I mean, they’re like four years.
And, and if you don’t get voted back in well, then pretty much everybody is wiped out from that. And it starts over again.
Oh man. Wow. Again, if you’re just joining us, we were talking to our recent guide on a pronghorn hunt in Montana, Elvin Fitzler.
And, Elvin, I asked you in the truck, when we were driving, I said, okay, you know, thank you for giving us that name to be able to talk. So pronounce your Indian name for us again.
It is Bajay Chugannala. It goes after the chief. So I’m going after the chief to bring them back to their people, basically.
Wow. That is so cool, man. I tell you.
And we had such a good time with you. And man, I just want to tell you, man, you did an excellent, excellent job in guiding us. And, you know, my friend David had never been on a pronghorn hunt, and he just had his hip replaced about four and a half weeks before this hunt.
And so so he had to struggle just a little bit, but overall did very well. And man, our first day that we went out, was able to get David on one. And boy, Elvin just picked up, made a really good plan for us to get around and cross over a few hills there to get David and I shot about 170 yards.
And then the next morning, I was able to take mine. And I tell you, our taxidermist was very proud of our, and that’s what we wanted. You know, sure, everybody likes to get, you know, just the biggest, you know, nice size, but we just like a good representation of the species.
And man, you did it. You did us both good. So man, I just want to publicly say thank you, bud.
Hi, you bet, man. I spotted that buck out that you got a couple of weeks before, and I tried to get somebody else on it because there’s two nice bucks. And we got one of them.
And that guy didn’t happen to show himself that that same day. So I just left him alone and didn’t think nothing of it until you came along. I was like, let’s try this guy again.
Let’s see if he’s around.
Well, it worked out, man. Sometimes you have plan A, plan B, and plan C. But you know what?
Man, when it all comes together, it’s a great, great time. All right, so let’s talk about some of the game there you have on the reservation. And again, it’s Crow Scout Outfitters.
The gentleman’s name is Barry that you can call. And I’ll give you his number real quick if you’re interested. And I’m telling you, these are great guys.
Everything is just awesome. And I’ll go into more details on that in a minute. But the number is 406-679-2955.
Again, 406-679-2955. And Crow Scout Outfitters. All right, let’s talk about some of the game there on the reservation.
OK, I think in the spring we got bears and turkey. I think those are in your spring hunt. And they start like in May, I believe.
And in the fall, you got your antelope. Upland game birds, I believe, starts in September, middle of September, I think. And I think you still get some bear in the fall.
And then, I’m not exactly sure how the people hunt, so I think that’s kind of mainly going through to getting connections through the tribe to get one of those. I’m not sure exactly how that goes.
Now in your bear hunts, which one do you think is kind of better for people? You like the fall or do you like the spring bear?
You know, I’ve never, I’ve went and helped scout out and do bear hunts, but I’ve never went and guided on my own, but those are, there’s a lot of bear out in the spring and they’re easy to find. I guess they’re harder to find in the fall time.
Yeah, I would think that.
So those ain’t too bad of hunts either. They’re pretty good fun hunts. And I’ve heard guys say we got some of the best bears in the world, natural bears that ain’t fed up by anything.
And they’re just big natural bears we got here, beautiful bears.
And it’s kind of the same way we did with the prong, just kind of a spot and stalk type setup?
Yeah, yeah, you just spot them. You just got to spot them out and then you can stop coming up, pretty much.
Okay. And I tell you, man, the land there is endless. I don’t care what direction you look.
And now one thing I looked up is it was like 2.2 million acres. Is that pretty much right?
Yeah, we got 2.2 million acres within the reservation line.
My goodness. Man, it’s crazy.
And you got about every about every aspect of hunting you would like to do, hills, mountains, prairie.
Yep, absolutely. So help us out as a guide. What would you say to people that come with you and just some things that you said, Hey, look, we’re trying to do our best to get you on animals.
What are just some tips to that you might give to hunters that come there? And just from a communication standpoint, and we kind of talked about it when we talked about people coming there. And, oh, how far can you shoot 400 yards and they miss something at 50 yards?
I mean, you know, I mean, you got to be honest with your guide. So I’m just kind of give you the direction I’m trying to go here. But what are just some other points that you try to, you know, have good communication with your hunters to help them be successful?
I just like to get things right going in the beginning, you know, like how comfortable are you shooting? Have you been shooting long range? Have you tried shooting long range?
Are you got turrets on your gun? You know, you practice or, you know, I’m just gonna, I want to be familiar with what everybody’s comfortable and like, how, how sneaky do I, do I got to be? Right, right.
How close I got to get you to, to within your animal and a comfortable shooting distance.
And here’s what the, and keep your train of thought there, but here’s the big thing I would like people to understand. There’s no right or wrong answer to that question when you ask them. You just need to know an honest answer, right?
Yeah.
Don’t tell me you can shoot 1,000 yards, but you ain’t ever shot 1,000 yards on your gun. But you’re, but you’re set your turrets to it, but you ain’t ever done that yourself, you know? Because once you, once you wound an animal, that’s your ticket, you know?
You don’t want to wound animals. We’d like to get them down, but sometimes you can’t find them if you wound them, you know? And your ticket’s been failed right there, even if you don’t get it.
Right, right. And just to kind of give listeners a little picture of kind of how this works when you go there. You do your own hotel, your own lodging, and food, that kind of thing.
And then, you know, the guy would pick you up, in our case, Elvin, picked us up, and he had a plan for us to go out the day, and we just said we wanted to go all day, so if you want to bring along some snacks or a sandwich, whatever you want to do, or if you want to stop for lunch and go in somewhere, they can do that as well. But really, I mean, it’s really great, because I mean, it’s really just kind of riding around, because there’s no way you can walk it, trust me. And spotting some pronghorn in this case, and man, having Elvin look at them, and you look at them, and hey, is that something we want to go after, or keep looking?
So it was just a magnificent hunt, super, super fun. And of course, what makes a hunt great is when you got a great guy that can laugh with and cut up with, and just really had fun. He made us feel super comfortable, and hopefully we made you feel comfortable, too, Elvin.
I mean, we enjoyed our time with you, man. And when we come back, we want to certainly book with you again. But anything else you think we should mention here to help people understand what you guys got going on up there in Montana?
No, no, I’d just like to say come and have a good time with us, and we’d have a good time with you.
Yep, absolutely. Again, it is Crow Scout Outfitters. Barry’s going to answer, just telling me you heard him on Sportsman of Colorado.
Tell him you heard Elvin, all right, and that’ll get him, but tell him you heard Elvin on Sportsman of Colorado Radio. But it’s 406-679-2955, and again, highly recommend these guys. And if you have any questions, of course, you can get in touch with me through the show, and I can fill you in a little more details if needed.
But we’re going to look into the spring bear hunt next year with them, but again, in the spring, they got their bear and turkey, and in the fall, the antelope, upland birds, and more bear hunts there. So, Elvin, I appreciate you taking a few minutes, man, and I’m sure we will be talking to you again here in the future pretty quick.
Absolutely. It was nice to talk to you.
Okay, bud. You too, man. Have a good day.
You’re listening to Sportsman of Colorado. We got to take a quick break, and we’ll be back with more right after this.
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This is KLZ 560 AM, your home station.
Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. Again, thank you so much for joining us. Just a quick reminder now, if you miss our show on Saturdays, one to two p.m., you can catch us twice on Sundays.
That’s from eight to nine, both on Sunday, eight to nine a.m., eight to nine p.m. Then also on Thursday, the following Thursday, we also have an encore presentation of the previous Saturday show here on Sportsman of Colorado Radio. So hopefully one of those four times will work out for you. But hey, we’re super excited to have a new friend, Steve Wells.
Steve has just returned, and you heard Melanie on before with the Wild Alaskan Lodge, and Steve has just returned from being there with them. And so I asked him if he’d come on and tell us all about some Alaska fishing. So Steve, welcome to Sportsman of Colorado.
Thanks for having me.
All right, so tell us a little bit about you first of all, and your background, and then what led you to Alaska?
I am an outdoorsman from southern Idaho. I grew up and have lived in southern Idaho my whole life. I spent a little time in the Marine Corps, so I’ve spent some time around the world, but I always come home.
I’m an avid fisherman, hunter. I love to fish. I work on an ambulance service here in Burley, Idaho, and Jason, who built the lodge up there, was a police officer in the area, so I knew him.
I had worked with him a lot.
Okay.
And when he had mentioned he was building the lodge, I had caught wind of it, was paying attention to what was happening, and one of the paramedics that I worked with, him and I discussed it, called Jason and we said, hey, we’d like to be your first. So we signed up just about a year ahead of time and got her all paid up, and we just knew what we wanted to do. We wanted to go up there and catch big fish.
That’s fantastic. So tell us a little bit about how you got from Idaho to where they are in Alaska.
So we booked a flight out of Boise and flew into Seattle from there and then Seattle into Juneau.
So a direct flight into Juneau from Seattle.
Directly right into Juneau. We chose to fly in a little early so we could see some of the sights. Juneau is a fantastic town for that.
Yeah.
A beautiful town.
State capitol, lots of stuff going on there.
A lot of stuff going on. Friendly people, everybody there was fantastic. We’d asked them questions.
Everybody was fantastic about, these are the kind of jigs you want to use. This is what, everything we asked, they were fantastic.
Had you fished in Alaska before this trip?
This is my first time to Alaska.
Self-guide.
No, I was going to say, self-guide. You are a fisherman or crazy.
The gentleman that I went web with, Jason Parkinson, a friend of mine, he fishes a lot out at Buick Can and the mouth of the Columbia.
Okay.
Takes his boat up there and trolls for salmon. And we fish for kokanee here in Idaho. And it turned out that fishing for kokanee is about the same as catching kings, other than kings are way bigger.
Way bigger.
Way bigger.
Yeah, absolutely.
We sent a ferry from Pelican.
Yeah.
Met us in Juneau. So we spent the night in Juneau and then got on the ferry the next afternoon.
Yeah.
It’s a four hour ride out to Pelican.
Yeah. And how was the weather when you when you got there for the ferry ride?
Amazing. Was it 60 degrees sunny?
Nice.
You could see whales everywhere. You look there were whales breaching and surfacing and bald eagles everywhere.
Sure.
It’s a very scenic ride.
Yeah.
Mountainous and a lot of islands and lighthouses.
Just beautiful.
Yeah. So that that part of the trip was just it’s just the beginning. You’re like, wow, I’m sure if you hadn’t been there before flying into Juneau, did you fly in late at night then?
Or did you fly in during like the day?
I flew.
I flew in fairly late in the evening.
OK.
Mind you, you know, the days are long.
Right. Sure.
So it seemed like early in the day. But I believe I landed in about seven o’clock in the evening.
OK.
So you got to see some of the country flying in then, too.
Yes.
Yeah. Oh, yes.
Yes.
So then you have the four hour trip and the whale watching and all of that other stuff.
Just it’s kind of like a whale watching on the way.
Exactly. Especially with the nice weather.
It’s just like when you go anywhere. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Australia. When you get to Australia, you’re hoping.
I see it. I hope I see a kangaroo. Right.
And then they’re everywhere.
Just another kangaroo.
I was going to see a whale in Alaska. And we were only about 40 minutes in and the captain says, Oh, there’s a whale there. And I was surprised.
They blow their spout up. And boy, you can see them a long ways away. Oh, yeah.
They’re large animals. It’s orcas. We saw the orcas.
We saw the little river or the ocean otters, the sea otters.
They were out there.
It was there’s a lot of wildlife to see if you’re into that.
Yeah.
Wow.
And it just kept things just kept getting better as we went.
Yeah, right. So, again, not everybody’s schedule will be the same, but your schedule then got you there probably about what time to the lodge?
That put us into the lodge. Let’s see. They met us at 3, 34 o’clock in the afternoon.
We got into the lodge.
OK. OK.
And we actually stopped in Pelican, which is about a mile north of Jason’s Lodge. And we stopped there. They had a local bar there and an eatery.
We actually ate dinner there that that day and walked around the town. They showed us where the store was. There’s a fish cannery and processing plant.
So they walked us through all of that and then brought the boats over. And we we met our boats and took them from Pelican over to the wild Alaskan Lodge.
Got it. And you said that’s about a mile run.
That’s about a mile. Yeah. Wow.
That’s awesome. And so tell us about for those folks that are that are thinking about the self-guided. Let’s just talk about the process of getting your own boat and what they do to sort of help you through that process.
They they walked us out and walked us through all of the all the amenities of the boat. There’s Navionics. You’ve got the fish finder.
You’ve got twin outriggers on the back, hole holders. It’s all set up for for halibut and salmon fish. You can control or just sit.
Okay.
They explained all the gear to us. It was all brand new gear.
Yeah.
Brand new boats and they went through everything. You had to go through. You had to know all of your where the fire extinguishers were and where all the safety equipment was.
And they were very thorough. Yeah. Very thorough in that.
They are an enclosed cab boat. So it’s a hard cab. And it turns out one day there, it was fairly rainy and it turns out that’s a blessing.
Yeah. No doubt.
Enclosed boat is nice.
Yeah. You know, the majority, it just seems having been to Alaska on a number of trips, it seems you get good weather, but most of the time, you get sort of that drizzly, foggy, wet, yeah, just kind of damp, cold weather is kind of what you have. So that’s great to hear that that makes a huge difference so that you can get out of the weather when you need to.
It was fantastic.
And how about any bathroom facilities or what do they do for folks on the boats? Do they give you some?
They’ve got what we termed the squatty potty. They got a little toilet that goes out with you.
Nice. Sure.
Okay, cool. Once again, if you’re just joining us, we were talking about the Wild Alaskan Lodge. Hey, check them out on other social media, Facebook, Instagram.
They post some great pictures there. It’s the wildalaskanlodge.com and you can see all they do. And again, it’s not that Alaska fishing is unique, but for us, self-guiding was unique when we met these folks at the Denver International Sportsman’s Expo this last year.
And it’s just from everything we’ve heard, and that’s why we’re getting some people on to do testimonials. We’re not able to go till next year, Steve. So, man, we’re living through you guys here right now.
Yeah. The last summer, we went to a lodge where we could take out boats in the evening. And we had one evening that we did that, and we did our own self-guided stuff.
And we hooked a giant halibut. So that’s part of the allure with this sort of self-guided, is that you’re not limited to sort of what the guides can do in Alaska and what fish you can keep because of being guided. And it makes a big difference.
So what, and I don’t know if you remember everything off the top of your head, but I mean, the guidelines and what Kevin’s referred to, of course, is the guidelines. You know, if you’re guided, you can keep one halibut a day and it’s got to fit in a certain slot and all that. And there’s just different limits.
But that does change when you’re self-guided.
Yes, it does. You get more fish.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what did you find? So we haven’t even gotten to the lodge yet.
We should get to the lodge, Scott.
We should just let him get to the lodge.
Our brains are all over.
So you take the boat, you get the good, they talk with you about the boats, boats are new and you take them over to the lodge. So describe for folks what the lodge is like and what they can expect when they come.
The lodge was chiseled on to a rocky little bank that is literally just a work of art, what they’ve done. I got to walk around and look at the footings. They had to chisel into the rock and that’s got large stilts.
They are sitting up probably 20 feet off the ground in the front.
No kidding.
And the back is right on the ground.
So you must feel like you’re right over the water then.
You are right over the water.
I could step out of my room and look straight down and see the moon jelly exploding by in the water.
Wow, that’s cool.
It is just crystal clear water. It’s a pristine place.
Yeah.
Untouched.
It’s just beautiful.
And did you see much in the other rooms as far as type? So let’s say, I would assume it’s a great place for, you know, husband and wife to go or bring a couple of kids or if, you know, a few buddies come.
I don’t know if, I mean, if I was to go up there again, I would probably take my wife just so she could experience Alaska. Right. She’s she’s she gets seasick very easily.
Mine too. Mine too. Maybe like maybe we can go together and your wife can hang out with my wife.
She’s the same way.
Yeah. Fantastic. Because they’ve got in the kitchen of the lodge, they’ve got some beautiful tables over the windows overlooking the ocean right there.
The the view is just breathtaking. It’s high mountains all around you. It’s green.
It’s gorgeous. It’s you know, it would it would be a good spot to hang out. Not a lot to do.
Pelican has a few things to do. So you could go into Pelican. They like to say they’ve got a little store and a bar and a few hangouts.
But it’s but it’s remote, isn’t it? I mean, it’s what you would turn remote Alaska very remote.
And it’s yeah. And from what it sounds like, it’s a fishing lodge.
It is a fishing lodge. Yes, it’s a lodge set up strictly for fishing. And and it’s you know, you don’t want to go there expecting the king size bed with all the fluffy pillows and whatnot.
It’s it’s I mean, fantastic. That I slept wonderful. Yeah, but there it’s designed for you to come home and sleep and because you’re fishing all day.
Yeah. Yeah. So let’s talk about that.
Let’s talk about the meat of the issue, which is the fishing. So so describe your days that you’re there. Breakfast in the morning that starts, I’m assuming, pretty early and then get out of the boats at five.
At five o’clock, we would meet them. They had breakfast ready. And our coolers were filled with cold lunches.
You know, everything set up chips, snacks, anything you want, waters, everything you want.
Yeah.
Bake coolers were set out.
It’s just you.
We had to do nothing. We were spoiled rotten up.
That’s awesome.
You gather up your coolers, you put them in the boat. And then we had we had discussed Jason cannot tell you where to go. That’s part of the right.
Right. Exactly. Yeah.
He did tell us that, OK, that the salmon are going to be hanging offshore in the open ocean and the halibut as the tide changes, you want to put a chum bag down and that’ll take the smell of your chum bag out and it’ll bring these halibut in. They like to come up on top of a plateau to eat. And and we’ve been told by that by several people.
So we thought, well, we’ll we’ll go out and we’ll target the kings first, because we were told the bite was a little hard.
Yeah.
And I think in so an hour and a half, we within 30 minutes, we had our first fish on board. Oh, man. But in an hour and a half, we had doubled up a couple of times and put a smaller one back.
We caught some that were too small, but very quickly we had our salmon.
That’s awesome.
And so then we were able to target the rockfish and ling cod and halibut. And just by going off what they had said, we found a spot that turned out to be, we went there every day for halibut.
Yeah.
And just it was kind of in a valley that dropped off into a deep hole. And as the tide would start going out, you’d put that chum bag down there and those halibut would come up. And boy, it was kicking the pants.
That’s awesome. What was the largest halibut you guys caught?
Well, the largest one we actually got into the boat, I believe, was 82 pounds.
OK.
But we had two larger ones. Jason, my partner, he, him and his wife had set up on one side of the boat and he brought one up. And it was the first halibut we had actually brought into the boat.
And they had a small gap there. And I reached down the gap, that thing. And as soon as it touched it, it just took off, took off, snapped his line and was gone.
Yeah.
And it was it was way bigger.
Yeah.
And then we’ve been there.
We know that feeling. We’ll have to tell you that off air.
Yeah.
And the third day about the same thing happened to me. We were trolling for salmon and I thought I’d snag. But as I pull up on that salmon rod, it was moving and I thought, okay, I thought how but it was huge.
Wow. And Jason harpooned him and it took off so fast, it ripped the harpoon right back out of its belly and snapped my line. It was heartbreaking, but I’ve learned that’s Alaska.
Yeah, that is, that is halibut. I’ve been on that halibut rodeo before and they are a strong fish, no doubt.
They’re very strong.
Yeah.
That one I hooked there, I would not have wanted him plopping around the boat.
Yeah.
He was easily, Jason thinks 140, I think he was probably 120 pounds. Yeah. But big enough to eat a snot out of you.
Oh yeah, I completely agree.
But you caught some other smaller halibut and also rockfish and ling cod?
Oh yes. Ling cod, we caught some beautiful lings.
Rockfish, of course, you’ve got to really look at your regulation because there’s so many you can’t keep.
Right, yeah, pelagic versus non-pelagic and all of the different.
Well, and they’ve got a lot of those. I don’t know if you’ve seen them. They’ve got one called the quillback.
Yep.
And they’ve got these large spines. And we we turn them as the a-hole fish.
Yeah, no doubt.
We grab stabbed me in the finger.
Yeah, so those look like a little dinosaur prehistoric thing coming out of the water.
Yeah, yeah. And you catch a lot of those.
Yep, yep.
Give us a sense of sort of the depths that you were fishing at for the the bottom fish for the halibut.
So the bottom fish roughly in that 120 to 150.
Oh, that’s not bad then.
No, no, there was a member. There was a husband and wife group that they were going out about 25 miles. They were fishing in that three to five hundred range, but they had their own electric reels, and they were all set up for that.
We found out, in fact, there was another couple that, they caught the first really big halibut, close to a hundred pounder, and they were in the inlet right there by Pelican.
Oh, okay.
And they were only fishing in about 60, 70 feet of water. So, it’s… It didn’t seem, depth did not seem to be all that critical on the halibut as much as finding a spot where it would channel your…
The chum.
Chum. And take the scent to the fish.
Sure. Sure. Or where there were resident fish that may be up on a hump or something like that that you just looked at and were like, oh, this looks fishy.
Yeah. So, not having done it before, so how did you guys decide sort of looking at a chart where to go? What did you do in sort of the first day of deciding how to…
We downloaded the Navionics app on our phone.
Okay.
And sat there the night before, just looking for those, any place that looked like it would channel.
Yeah.
And move the scent.
Yeah.
So if you had two high spots and that were, and you had a channel in it that was coming from deep up to shallow.
Sure.
That’s kind of what we looked for. We were looking for formations like that.
Yeah. And that’s fun, too, just to sort of plan out the next day to figure that out.
It is.
Yeah.
It is. Because you’ve got a lot of daylight there. And, you know, by the third day of utilizing all that daylight, you’re pretty tired.
Yeah.
It was fun to figure out. And by the time we started understanding some of the structure and the area, for instance, the salmon, you’d hear over the radios that, oh, we’ve hooked another king by the rabbit’s head. Oh, or by the rabbit’s ears.
So we got looking and there’s a structure on, you know, underwater out there that goes from about 300 feet up to about 80 feet. And that high spot looks just like a rabbit’s head. And the kings, and you could tell, you’d get out there, there were 30 boats.
Yeah. All in a two-mile area.
Right.
And the kings would set up just off that rabbit’s head and you’d troll through there. And it, at first, we weren’t getting, we caught a few silvers, but we weren’t getting the kings.
Yeah.
And we couldn’t figure it out. So Jason decided, instead of a full herring, he dropped back to just a third of a herring. And we started just bang, bang, bang, bang.
So they were higher up in the water column or something?
And so they were they were actually a little deeper in the water column. We found that if we were actually occasionally bumping the bottom with our downrigger. Yeah, that’s that’s where you got into the king.
Huh?
OK.
They you come up shallower and get into the same. The silver and the pink.
Yeah.
But the kings, you had to just kind of flirt with them. There were a few downrigger balls that were lost. You just flirt with disaster and keep things.
So where you’re down there at the bottom, and that’s where we catch those kings.
Got it.
Sure, sure. Again, if you’re just joining us, Steve Wells is with us. He has been a recent guest at the Wild Alaskan Lodge right out of Pelican, Alaska there.
You fly into Juneau and they’ll pick you up. And if you missed the first part of the show here, sounds like a nice ferry ride in about four hours to the lodge. And they take care of you and everything.
But the fishing is self-guided 1000%. For more information, you can check out the wildalaskanlodge.com. Also follow them on Facebook and Instagram as well.
All right, so now let’s talk about the fishing. And we’re going to do this again because, you know, we’ve got a lot of guests lined up, but I want to get you back on again. We can just talk other hunting stuff with you up in Idaho.
We need to do some stuff in Idaho with you. But as far as, you know, you bring back your fish and then getting it back with you. How does that work?
So they, as soon as we get to the dock, they would, of course, you bleed your fish out there, of course.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
There’s no blood in it, but you bring it back and immediately they got people that are deck hands that would immediately fillet your fish and your fish would go right in your box. Then as soon as soon as they got that done, they’d run over to Pelican to the fish processing plant. They were vacuum packed and flash frozen.
And everything is packed in 50-pound boxes that you just get your luggage. Yep.
Great.
And they’ve got to figure it out.
It’s wax lined boxes. And then they’ve got almost like a tinfoil bubble wrap inside of that. Yep.
And then they’re banded both directions. I rolled in and rolled mine right into the airport. They, of course, the airport knows them.
They understand what they are. They were put right on mine actually got lost in Seattle.
Oh, my goodness.
So when I got the boy key, my fish was not there. They did get it found. They said it would come in later, which Jason Parkinson, the my buddy that I went up with, he was coming in on a later flight.
So he picked it up. And when it arrived in Burley several hours later, it was still frozen.
Yeah.
Oh, good.
Good.
They know what they’re doing on packing that fish.
Yeah.
Yeah. Every package is labeled halibut, salmon, rockfish, ling cod, everything you get is labeled.
Oh, all right.
And it’s so good. Have you had any of it yet?
Amazing. Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
Wow.
That’s so good.
Well, good. Anything else do you think would be good information for our listeners to know?
Well, one thing I don’t get, I do not get motion or seasick, and Jason does not get motion or seasick, but his wife does. We did have the scopolamine patches for her that you put behind your ear.
Okay.
Worked fantastic the first few days. You have to change them out every three days, though. And she forgot to change hers out.
Do not forget to change out your scopolamine.
You won’t forget but once, right?
I’ve never seen somebody puke that hard.
Yeah, and that’s a bad, that’s a bad.
That’s the worst. It ruined the day for her. So.
Right. Okay. Well, but we appreciate it so much.
Then you get your life.
When did you get your license before you arrived or did you get at the lodge?
I bought mine the night before at Sportsman’s there in Juneau.
Okay. Cool. Yeah.
You have to get a salmon card and your license.
Right.
Right. And I think for both of them, I was in about $85.
It sounds good.
Well, but we appreciate well worth it. Yeah. We appreciate you taking time with us.
And like I say, we’ll stay in touch for sure. And yeah, we need to get up Idaho and do some stuff with you maybe. So I’ll stay in touch.
And I know Melanie and Jason appreciate you coming on and doing this as well. So thank you very much.
They were fantastic hosts. That was a trip of a lifetime.
All right, bud. Thanks so much, Steven. We appreciate it.
Thank you.
Have a good day.
All right.
You as well. That’s Steve Wells once again, a recent guest at the Wild Alaskan Lodge. We’ve met these folks.
We haven’t been there yet. We are booked for next year. Our schedules just didn’t allow Kevin and I to go this year.
But we are going next year. But we’re going to be having some folks over these next few weeks go. Now, real quick, and I’m kind of working on some things with them.
Or we might figure out a couple hundred bucks off a package. I don’t want to commit to anything yet. But Kevin, it’s forty three hundred bucks.
And I tell you, we’ve done several of these. You’ve done more of a place across country. From everybody I’ve talked to already in this to those coming on the show, their testimonials were just like, yes, exactly.
You know, the interesting thing, and it’s it’s fun to talk to these folks. So Steve didn’t have a whole lot of experience maybe doing this sort of. I mean, a little bit, but his buddy did.
You’re going to need somebody that has some experience having been to Alaska, understand, I mean, from the safety standpoint and then just an idea of what are we looking for? Because what he said about doing some research relating to the night before looking at the Navionics and looking at the structure.
You got to know some people that they know what they’re doing.
And that’s part of the fun though of the self-guided trip, because I love going on these trips and being guided. I mean, they’re wonderful. And it’s fantastic.
And the last one that we went on last summer, just really good time. But there is some downside to it. You know, you go out later, you know, in the day, and you have to come back earlier.
The requirements relating to what fish you can keep and what you can do during the day is somewhat limited, because you’re normally with a bunch of people. This, you’re going to have your own boat. You’re going to go out.
If you’re halibut fishing, and you got six people on the boat, and you’ve got a couple of your buddies have caught yours, and you’re waiting on four other people to catch theirs, two more hours goes by, and we could have been doing something else.
Right. Exactly.
Gives you a little more freedom.
It does. And it’s to do it on your own. I think there’s some real satisfaction in that.
And it sounds like the facilities are new, and just fantastic. So I’m really excited about it. I’m excited to talk to more people about it.
Absolutely. You’re listening to Sportsman of Colorado. We’ll be back with more right after this.
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Yeah, but we do have something in common. Really? What’s that?
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KLZ 560 AM, your home station.
Before we go today, hey, just a couple of thank yous, first of all, to Elvin, our guide in Montana. Once again, if you’re looking for a great hunt, I would highly recommend those guys, and wanna thank Alaskan Lodge. We are looking so forward to our trip next year.
Kevin and I wanna thank Kevin Flesh for being with us as well. And today’s show is actually brought to you by Flesh Law, and any legal need from the criminal law side or personal injury side, I hope you’ll give Kevin a call at 303-806-8886.
And you’ve been hearing us talk about, of course, Initiative 91 for a number of months now, really. And we kept telling you we had to wait till we get a prop number. Well, over the last few days, we have received that prop number now.
You’ve probably seen a lot of things on social media, and it is Proposition 127. Next week, Dan Gates is gonna join us with Colorado and is responsible for Wildlife Management. And he’s gonna kind of fill you in, and we’ll kind of talk about the game plan as much as we can.
Don’t want to give out everything for the opposition here, but we’re gonna lay out some of the plans of what’s going on. But the main thing is, folks, we gotta vote. We’ve got to get everybody involved on this.
And this is for hunters and non-hunters, just to educate them on the whole idea of mountain lion hunting. And so many people I’ve talked to had no idea that, you know, you have to take a class, you have to take a course, so to speak, to even get a tag. Now, they did not realize there’s limits on how many cats can be taken out of units.
Had no idea you have to check it in. I mean, just all the things that we do in trying to grow, actually, our numbers on mountain lions. And Dan Gates says, hey, the population has never been healthier, and that is due to hunting.
And of course, we all know that. So once again, Proposition 127, we gotta vote no. We gotta win this.
This is a state where they’re gonna try this out. And if they are successful, it is gonna make a huge impact on our hunting here in Colorado, for sure. So join us next week.
Dan Gates, be our special guest with Colorado’s First Sponsor for Wildlife Management. If you have any questions for Dan that you would like to ask, and sometimes he has to pre-record, so if you wanna send me those questions, we’ll sure try to get Dan to answer those questions. It’s Scott at sportsmanofcolorado.com, or you can text me 720-201-8585.
Again, 720-201-8585. But thanks for being with us today for Sportsman of Colorado. Quick reminder as well, you can hear re-broadcast on Sundays at 8 a.m., 8 p.m., and also Thursdays 9 to 10 a.m. right here on KLZ 560.
Thanks for being with us. Have a great rest of your weekend.
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ Management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting and God and Country station.