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Diaries of a Lodge Owner
In 2009, sheet metal mechanic, Steve Niedzwiecki, turned his passions into reality using steadfast belief in himself and his vision by investing everything in a once-obscure run-down Canadian fishing lodge.
After ten years, the now-former lodge owner and co-host of The Fish'n Canada Show is here to share stories of inspiration, relationships and the many struggles that turned his monumental gamble into one of the most legendary lodges in the country.
From anglers to entrepreneurs, athletes to conservationists; you never know who is going to stop by the lodge.
Diaries of a Lodge Owner
Episode 72: Success from a Guide's Perspective w/ Orlando Zecca
Orlando Zecca's life is a testament to pursuing one's passion, beginning from the banks of the Grand River to the vast wilderness of the Great White North. Orlando took a leap from the world of accounting to fulfill his dream of becoming a fishing guide at Anderson's Lodge, and his journey is full of fascinating turns and lessons. Through personal stories, he shares how his early love for fishing, ignited by his grandparents' cottage on Lake Erie, led him to help others find joy in fishing adventures. Join us as we explore Orlando's journey from a childhood passion to a profession that thrives on creating memorable experiences for others.
Discover how Orlando found his footing in the guiding world, from learning the ropes as a dockhand to leading successful fishing expeditions. His story is punctuated by pivotal moments and influential mentors like Joe Wesley, who imparted invaluable life and guiding philosophies during a challenging training journey. Orlando's experience emphasizes the importance of staying positive, embracing humility, and learning from each day on the water, lessons he now shares with his own guests and fellow guides.
Peek into the inner workings of lodge life, where Orlando balances the demands of guiding with personal aspirations, including his winter work with Indigenous youth and crafting lures for his side business. His story illustrates the delicate balance between work and family, and the passion that drives him to continue growing in his career. As Orlando transitions from guide to potentially taking on ownership roles, he remains committed to the principles that have guided his journey thus far. Tune in to this episode to learn from Orlando's experiences, gain insights into the life of a fishing guide, and be inspired by his dedication to sharing the joy of fishing with others.
This episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner is brought to you by Nordic Point Lodge a luxury outdoor experience with five-star service.
Speaker 2:I went up there and I just absolutely loved being around people on vacation. It seemed like I wasn't even at work. It was like I was hanging out with friends and you'd always have new friends coming in, Waking up every day, being on the dock fueling boats, marking spots on the map for people. I just really found a passion in that and helping people achieve their fishing goals. I would say that's where the thought to maybe be a guide one day started to bloom.
Speaker 1:This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio podcast Networks Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North. What is success and happiness? Well, folks, those are big thoughts and on today's show, will and I find some great insights from a young senior Anderson's Lodge guide and it is our pleasure to introduce to the Diaries family Orlando Zecca. On this show we find out just how Orlando found his passion and the steps he has taken this far to turn that passion into a career. He shares some great insights. He's learned from some of the most amazing Bushmen and guides on the planet. With these and experiences of his own, has shaped a guiding philosophy second to none, has shaped a guiding philosophy second to none and beautifully illustrates how important those life lessons were for him and how they have contributed to his success and happiness and, in my opinion, should be applied to all areas of life. So take a deep breath, folks. Breathe in some of today's awesome thoughts and ideas, because they very well may help to contribute to your success and happiness.
Speaker 1:Here's our conversation with Orlando Zecca. Folks, welcome to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North, and today we are extremely excited. Will and I, hey, will, folks, how are you today To have Orlando on from the Great White North and Orlando. Zecca works for Anderson's Lodge and is a guide and I'm always super excited to have guides on because Will I don't know about you, but I feel guides can be, and usually are, some of the most interesting people on the planet.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, they got the best stories and the uh, the streamline of the business, the lodge industry. There you're, the guides and the food, or your heartbeat, or your heart, oh, yeah, that's your bloodline. So it's uh. So orlando's a seasoned man up here at anderson's on, uh, the laxule chain up here in that area. Um, thanks for coming out.
Speaker 2:Welcome, orlando, thanks for having me. Fellows, I'm absolutely thrilled to be doing this with you guys on this beautiful morning here.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. Now, Orlando. I have a question to kick things off here. Go ahead, and it's one that I love to ask guides, because it's interesting to me. Where in your roots did you find enough passion to go and guide so far up north and it's really a lifestyle, but where did you find that passion? Tell us a little bit about your roots and why you're guiding.
Speaker 2:I think it all started just growing up on the Grand River.
Speaker 2:I was lucky enough to spend the majority of my life literally immersed in the Grand River.
Speaker 2:I grew up at a spot called Wilkes Dam and I mean, every morning I walk out of my backyard I'm a stone's throw away from the water and I just always had opportunities to go fishing for multiple species, including bass, steelhead, pike, walleye, really, you name it. And also, growing up, my grandparents had a a cottage on lake erie, neander bay, their, uh, long point area. So, yeah, I always had opportunities to go fishing from a young age and, uh, just because I had so much experience down there, I'd often bring my friends and kind of show them the ropes. I think that's where it all started for me was seeing the joy and having pride in helping people catch fish. That's something that started off quite early for me and, to be completely honest with you, I like watching people catch fish just as much as I like catching them myself, sometimes even more, especially if it's somebody who's not as experienced and you know all the things that go with catching the fish the fuck ups.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you know that's amazing, and so, yeah, I think that's where it all really started for me.
Speaker 1:Well, we definitely have something in common and I would love to drill a little deeper into this. I also grew up around the Grand River. The Grand well, like, the closest town when I was a kid to us was called Grand Valley, which the Grand River runs right through Grand Valley and it's just west of Orangeville. So some of my earliest memories my mom had me when I was fairly young, and my brothers and sisters, and we only had one car. Dad worked in Fergus and we lived in the country on a one-acre severance off of my grandparents' 100-acre farm. And when I was young enough I remember being in those little car seat things that people would strap to the back of their bike.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:I can remember being in one of those car seats on the back of my mom's bike and she would bike from our house to Waldemar.
Speaker 1:It's a little hamlet close to where I am but it's like probably a 40-minute bike ride, Like it's not just going down to the corner and we'd bike through the farm, Like it was all farm country, and on the on the dirt roads to get to waldemar and we would go have picnics at the side of the grand river and I would play in the river and catch like crayfish.
Speaker 1:And you know I can totally see how, being around that the water and and and um, I I never did did have any exposure to lakes until I was probably in high school because you know, we didn't do a whole lot of traveling and dad didn't do a whole lot of fishing. But the Grand River give me the opportunity to do the same thing and uh, you know, from, from going, uh, uh, biking down and and really, where I was, um, catfish and chub and um, maybe the odd smallmouth, but not much, and then some Northern pike, um, I found in some of the tributaries but um, it was it. It really gave me the opportunity to get right into the river and look at what was growing in it, because you could see the bottom and you could move rocks and you know it was up to your knees in some spots, but that's very cool. And so where, geographically on the Grand, did you grow up?
Speaker 2:to give us all an idea, I'm assuming it's down by lake erie where it dumps well, I'm actually a little bit further uh towards you in orangeville there I'm from, born and raised in brantford ontario. Okay, there's a series of dams um that run from caledonia to brantford, uh two specifically, and there's actually additional fishing opportunities in the later season there for uh, rainbow trout and steelhead. So, yeah, it's, it's a really special place.
Speaker 1:There's some deep holes along there, uh, where fish just seem to hold on a little bit longer, and the fish that are in there, man, it's yeah, well, I mean where I am, um, I'm, we're, we're way up in the tributary and I I made note when you were talking about walleye and the steelhead and the rainbows, because we don't get them up this high, so maybe it's the dams that are holding them back down to where you are, so you actually get walleye in the grand as well. Maybe it's the dams that are holding them back down to where you are, so you actually get walleye in the grand as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny If, uh, if you fish the top side of the dam, you can catch pretty much everything but walleye, and then if you fish the bottom side of the dam, you catch everything and walleye. So, yeah, it's really cool, depending on what you want to do it's. Am I going to the top part of the dam or am I going to the bottom part of the dam?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is wicked. That's really cool.
Speaker 4:Orlando your house is. I'm pretty sure we had Timmy Dawson on here a few episodes ago and just so everyone knows, timmy is your best friend and you guys grew up together and uh, fish in that area and I think when he took us down that bank that day with that little boat, that story we told he. Uh, he pointed out your house. I think it was up on the hill right, a white, a white place yeah, so that was my childhood home, growing up until about uh 2020.
Speaker 2:My parents ended up selling and it used to be red. They, the new owners, painted it white. But yeah, that was. That was my stomping grounds for a long time and we called that spot the piggy bank, because there's some.
Speaker 4:Oh buddy, that was a beautiful space and that was I got my first steelhead out of there and nice. You know, 20 years timmy took me down there I was looking at your house and I'm like bam, that guy's pretty deadly down there man. He gives me a run for my money. Yeah, that's a great spot, beautiful spot down there. How long have you and Tim known each other?
Speaker 2:Oh man, tim and I go way back, I want to say the eighth grade. Him and I became really good friends and we're like brothers now. We still talk to each other once a week, always fill him in on what's going on in my life. Same with him. And, uh man, I love that guy to pieces. He's, he's the. He's that best guy to go fishing with, in my opinion, because he always has food, he always has coffee or beer. Yeah, he's a great time. He doesn't stop talking, but it's just gold that flows out of his mouth you know well, oh, no, he's, he's a beauty, yeah he's uh, god only I said
Speaker 1:five days here with him recently so now, listen, now we've got a great feel for where the passion to to catch fish and to to show other people, because that's key to not I don't know if everybody has that that would be an interesting study or question to ask a number of people, and what I'm talking about is do you like watching people catch fish more than you like catching fish yourself? And I'm sure that there's some variance in there. But to actually truly love watching somebody else catch fish, you need to either have caught a lot of fish already and you've kind of got that part of it out of your system, or you just truly really love watching other people enjoy themselves, and I think there's a mixture of both. So what, now that we know you're this young gentleman loving to teach your buddies how to fish and you love catching all kinds of different species on a wonderful part of the Grand. How did that? Where did the transition? Because? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're nowhere close to the grand anymore, right?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm a long ways away. I'm a good 20, 20 plus hours drive away from where it all started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what happened from when you? You did that as a kid to get you to where you are now, like not in the business, but tell me about the stretch when you left the Grand and you went up to Lac Seul and the Kenora area.
Speaker 2:So I would say it all started. You know, being from down south, you always hear guys talk about up north fishing and you watch the fishing shows like Fishing Canada. These guys are going up to Eagle Lake, they're going up to Lake of the Woods and Lack Sewell and you're just like completely blown away, like oh my God, these guys are in the middle of nowhere right now.
Speaker 1:How did they get up?
Speaker 2:there? What are they doing? How are they not lost? Like, what are they doing, how are they not lost? And that's kind of always fueled me to push myself further and further north and provide fishing experiences with my friends. Kind of I'm like the ringleader, like the organizer of the fishing trips. Oh yeah, I like this lake. I saw this on this show, let's go try that.
Speaker 2:And it got to the point where I was finishing up my university degree. I went to school to be an accountant and, yeah, I was in my last year of university and I was trying to find jobs and everyone wanted experience, which I just didn't have. And I was like you know what? I haven't traveled really anywhere. I don't want to sit in an office just yet. I want to try going to somewhere like I saw on TV as a kid and just fully immerse myself in that lifestyle, even if it's just for a summer. So I saw job postings online for a dockhand position out on Eagle Lake.
Speaker 2:This little lodge, south Shore Lodge. It's on a peninsula, this little lodge, south Shore Lodge, it's on a peninsula. And I went up there and I just absolutely loved being around people on vacation. It seemed like I wasn't even at work. It was like I was hanging out with friends and you'd always have new friends coming in, waking up every day, being on the dock, fueling boats, marking spots on the map for people. I just really found a passion in that and helping people achieve their fishing goals. Uh, I would say that's where the the thought to maybe be a guide one day started to bloom. And, uh, the following year, after finishing my accounting degree, I was like well, you know what? I got a taste of the north and I'm kind of getting hooked on it. So let's.
Speaker 4:Oh, now you're not.
Speaker 2:You know well. So I ended up looking online at one of those job search engines and I found Anderson's Lodge, which I'd seen on TV before. In fact, fish and Canada has been there, I think, a number of times and I can remember those episodes, so you know what it's like.
Speaker 2:And actually when I was a little kid, my dad he was raised in a construction family he always told me these stories where his dad sent him way up north to Sioux Lookout and they hired the local indigenous guys to uh to build a pumping station with them and they they take them out every night and go fishing with them. They said we'd catch 15, 20 walleye in a matter of minutes and the guy would start a fire with nothing and cut all the fish up on a rock and they'd eat walleye. And and I was, you know I was like wow, maybe it's still like that. There I want to is this guy and I was, you know I was like wow, maybe it's still like that there I want to, is this guy straight to the end, yeah right.
Speaker 2:So I ended up applying at Anderson's Lodge and after a couple interviews I got the job. And I got to be honest with you I was scared shitless.
Speaker 1:And was that job for a dockhand or for a guide?
Speaker 2:No, this was the job posting was professional fishing guide.
Speaker 1:Oh, no shit, and you had never guided up until this point.
Speaker 2:I had never guided.
Speaker 4:Good for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Go into it hard you spent one year as a dockhand right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just that one season as a dockhand Very good. Yeah, I really wanted a guide. So I just I took the leap of faith and put myself right in those shoes and, man, am I happy I ever did.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, listen, it's very intriguing because a lot of, a lot of the guides that I employed started as dockhands and typically, you know, one year of working on the dock wasn't enough for me to bring somebody in as a guide, but what you did was you guided or you dockhanded at one spot and then applied for the guide at the other. Now I know that it's pretty intimidating and I can see like I mean, you must have been nervous as hell. Number one, and I'd like to drill down into each one of these areas so you can remind me or just go straight into them. But, number one, the guests and the guest experience and the stress of not knowing exactly how to maybe do the shore lunch and catch fish.
Speaker 1:Number one you're going on to a new body of water and you've got to be happy, like I mean, no matter what, because all guides have rough days, but the great ones are the ones that know how to deal with it. So there's that aspect of it. There's also the hierarchy and structure of how the guide staff is run, you know, and I would be totally interested in talking about that. So keep that one in mind, boys, that. So keep that one in mind, boys. But let's talk about how you jumped right into that guiding position and I can tell you right now.
Speaker 1:I know why you're successful and I would have, as a owner, talking to you and if I had asked you about what your experience as a dockhand was like and you gave me the answer that you just talked about how you loved talking to people and hanging with people on holidays and how it didn't feel like a job and you were making friends and different friends coming in every day and fueling the boats. Buddy, that, like. I mean that right there, if I heard that those words and folks out there that are listening, and if you're interested in being a dockhand, go back to this episode, listen to that exact description, because if you come out with that kind of passion and that answer, you're going to get hired 10 times out of 10, 100 times out of 100, right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it doesn't. You know, your guiding is Steve. You're so right, like it's, your days, good days and bad days, and there's, you know, the fishing aspect, the boating aspect, the safety aspect, the cooking aspect of your show run. But to be able to sit in a boat for some, with someone, for eight hours straight in a really a confined space, right, and if it's not going as planned?
Speaker 1:well, when does it really?
Speaker 4:experience. Well, correct, right um very, very, very minimal. Yeah so I mean to be able to take that experience and have them leave the dock with a, with a, with a memory for a lifetime, and a smile and a passion that's.
Speaker 4:and, like you said, uh, zaka is teaching somebody. When they leave that boat and that dock they might have caught just a couple fish that day. Maybe it was a rough day, but if they educational-wise, if they learned, they're taking something with them Now and that was a huge part of my guiding. I really missed that part of it. But yeah, you're right, there's. You know you can take a lot of it. Takes a great guide to make those lump days, those drag out days.
Speaker 1:That's where you find out where the cream rises and whatever. So now that you've heard enough chatter between Willie and I, tell us about that first year of your guiding experience, from when you got the nod saying, yeah, you're on. You're on, brother, load up, you're now a guide. Tell us about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean in order to become a guide first. I think this part, telling this part is kind of important. The way it was at Anderson's because we had so many senior guides with 20 plus years of experience part of the the training process was, once your guide trainer thinks you're ready, you have to take out the other guides and you have to put them on fish and you have to cook the shore lunch for them. That was probably one of the most stressful mornings of my life and the night before thinking about where I'm gonna go and what I'm gonna do. I gotta feed great idea. I gotta feed two boats worth of grown men. So I think my my final day.
Speaker 2:I had about nine guys on a lake. We actually weren't fishing Laxul, we're fishing this other lake called Minnetaki, and it can be totally different from other lakes. In the spring you can catch walleye super deep and not shallow, which was the case for us that day. But anyway, I had to feed nine guys and there's one guy man. He ate four fish himself that day and I'm sitting there trying to get trying to get through cleaning these fish. I got all these pike and walleye on top of a cooler on this jagged island and my, my fish are sliding off the cooler and they're all yelling at me. I got the fire going and eventually I just got to the point where I I stood up. I said, well, you guys all shut up. You know I'm trying to do lunch here and you're all bitching at me just go get some wood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go get some wood. Okay, you guys are the guests, I'm the guy, just take it easy, all right. And they all looked at each other and said that's it, he's ready. So once, yeah, you just have to take the bull by the horns and a certain situations and and assert yourself as the captain. And I think that was a big stepping point for me and and knowing that you know I am in control here and that the outcome of the day really is dependent on the decisions that you make. But from that point forward, it was now about, like you said, providing the experience for the guests. The guests are paying for a service. They're not going to take anything home with them physically right, because we practice catch and release unless they're taking limits home. What you're trying to give them when they go home is one the experience to some sort of lesson and three, ultimately, photos. So once I kind of made that my mission, I would always ask guests you know, hey, what are your goals for this trip? What can we achieve for you when we're out on the water, or something that you can take back home with you to apply to your own water, and I would go from there.
Speaker 2:Lac Seul is a beast of a lake. We have a 10-hour day with our clients typically, so I like to do about 80% fishing, 20% traveling. We usually drive an hour up the lake, uh, and then fish for about eight hours and we'll drive an hour back on any given day. So that's kind of my game plan every single day going out Um or my, my, uh, my method. That I like to keep in the back of my mind. And as far as, uh, how to navigate, you know, you know, uh, guest expectations and dealing with the, the stress every day, because it's it's psychological warfare, not with other people, so to say, but mostly with yourself. Like, okay, I know what should, what I can expect with the fish and where they should be, but you get curveballs all the time. It's a massive body of water and there's only so much fishable area at any given time of the year. So you really have to kind of settle yourself down and just trust yourself.
Speaker 2:And I always go back to this one conversation with one of these senior guides, sean. I remember it was the first day of the season, opening day, and I had to cover for another senior guy. He hadn't made it to camp yet and these guys have been coming up for 20 years and, to be completely honest with you, these guys knew the lake better than me when they got to the boat. They're asking me what spots I got planned out and they're throwing names at me and I'm like holy smokes. This is going to be tough.
Speaker 2:But I just remember this one conversation that Sean had with us. He gets all the guides around on the dock and he starts off by saying just want you guys to know you could die any day out there. What we're doing is extremely dangerous. Just complete crap in my pants. Right, yeah, right, he goes, he goes. Just remember something All you're doing is going fishing, so don't overthink it. So that's been, that's been my mindset every day is you're just going fishing, trust yourself, put the guests first and and go from there and good things are going to happen. I'm a big believer in having good energy in the boat. I'm sure both of you have seen it before where everyone's crummy, things aren't going right, things just don't happen. You have to be the catalyst for positive thinking and the good things will follow.
Speaker 1:That is so key, and your mindset. I'm interested to know if you come up with three great points. You said the experience, a lesson and photos. And you know the photos and the experience. They go hand in hand Because as you get older, like Will and myself, you'll find that a lot of times my mind is so full of the goings on of everything in your life at that moment. But a photo will pop up. Or you'll look in a book and you'll see a picture and you had forgotten about that experience. But when you see that photo, even if it's 15 years ago, takes you right back to that. So that is the photo. The photos are so key. And the lessons.
Speaker 1:People want to learn things, and it doesn't even have to be about fishing, it can be anything, something about the lake and um, and yes, the, the most important thing that you you said there and I'm so happy that you went this direction is you are the person that controls how the boat goes and, and I believe that um, um, like attracts like, and that goes for vibration, emotion and everything else. So, as a guide, if you're, if you're happy, even if things aren't going good, if you're not catching fish, you're telling stories. You're, you know you're, you're showing people the, the, the beautiful landscape because, like I mean, it's some of the most beautiful area in the world and you remind people through saying you know, I love what I do, like I mean, this isn't even a job and and that brings them into the moment and they're thinking, wow, this is way better than work, no matter what, and you just control the feeling of the boat. And that is a very difficult thing to do sometimes because you know, I liken it to I just started curling again.
Speaker 1:I used to curl a ton through when I was in public school, in high school, in college, everything, and then I took probably, you know, 15 years off, with a couple of years in the middle, and I just started again with my son and the team feeds off of the skip, just like the team feeds off of the guide, and being away from it so long and getting older and not being as steady and accurate, which it has been a 15 year layoff, and I can't expect it to be like that. But I, in my head, I expect it and my negative feelings about how I'm playing affects everybody and that's key. Thank you for that. So, yeah, absolutely, like I mean, and have you talked like I'm assuming you're a senior guide now? Yeah, and did another senior guide come up with those three things, or were were those lessons that you kind of learned along the way and made that part of your philosophy?
Speaker 2:no-transcript. 18 days by myself in the boat with another senior guide, my my number one mentor, joe wesley. He's a very traditional ojibwe man. He used to have his own uh fishing show with him, with another co-host. I believe it was called cry the loon and you can still watch it on aptn uh ab Aboriginal people's television network.
Speaker 2:And uh, learning from a guy like that man was literally like a movie. You know, uh, his, his philosophy on life, the way he talked about fishing the only word that can describe it is majestic. Like the guy.
Speaker 1:I don't mean to interrupt you, but I just want to give you free reign to talk about everything that you experienced in those 18 days with him.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's super rare, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's something that kudos to Andersons, because that is something that is unheard of to me. But necessary, so please tell us about his philosophies, about your experiences with him and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that specific year in 2019, we had a pretty stacked crew of guides. They only hired I think it was two new guys that year, but the one guy he ended up backing out for whatever reason, I can't remember, but so it was just myself and joe, and when we first got on the water, I believe it was may 8th. I arrived at camp on may 6th. We went out may 8th and 90 99 of the lake was still frozen. Uh, so we had a lot of time just to putt around. We actually, for part of the guide training time there, we break ice so that way, camps and other boats can make their way up the lake. So we spent a lot of time just breaking ice and I would ask him questions about everything. You know, how long have you been doing this? When did you start guiding?
Speaker 2:And this guy's been a guide since he was 13 years old. He won fish filleting competitions in his village in Red Lake when he was nine years old, and so he has lived this life, more so than I think a lot of people, you who call themselves guides he is. He is the definition of an outdoorsman and as a fishing guide. So, uh, I would ask him. You know simple stuff like what can you catch over here? What can you catch over there? What type of structure do you find holds this fish at this time of the year, and he would give me these in-depth answers like I wasn't even expecting, because, you know, some guides are, they're very secretive and they hold on to what works for them. But this guy is an open book and I think I earned his trust right away just from asking these sort of questions and showing him that I really wanted to succeed at this job.
Speaker 1:So remember any of those answers that really was there, one that really sticks out a question that he give you an answer to, that that was kind of pivotal to helping you in your journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the biggest thing was was being humble. So he would tell me you know, I caught, I caught this fish over here and I caught this trophy over here and this one over there. I was like Joe, how do you, how do you not let this get to your head, you know, because you might have one day where you go out and you catch three trophy fish and then the next day you burn. You know, you get skunked, you get nothing. And he said every day I get back to the dock, I come in with a smile on my face, whether I did very poor or we're very successful, because it was another day on the water and I learned something. I either learned that that's where I should have been and I did all the right things, or I learned that's where I should not have been and I'm already thinking of where to go next. So every day I come into the dock, I have a smile on my face and I treat it like it was a good day.
Speaker 2:And on those days where you really did kick ass and maybe you out fished the entire dock, you don't brag about it. You come in, you're humble, you shake hands with your guests, you explain what's going to go on the next day and you leave it all on the boat because the following day might not be the same outcome. So you just have to accept those wins when you can and already be thinking about the following day might not be the same outcome. So you just have to accept those wins when you can and already be thinking about the next day. And I think that's something that has stuck with me since the very beginning because, you see it, you get these young guides come in, they have a couple good days. They think they're a hot shot. Maybe they don't tell people they don't share what they were't share.
Speaker 2:You know, uh, what they were doing to be successful. It ends up biting them in the ass. I mean, I've done it before too. You know you get on a really hot bite and you don't want anyone to know, but I think those things end up working against you in the end. So it's it's better to share, um yeah, and have everyone have very similar results uh, as opposed to you're constantly out fishing everybody.
Speaker 2:And I'm not saying that's how it started for me. I just really believe, after doing this for some time now, it's key to being successful day in and day out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a key, fundamental right there. Yeah, that is a key, fundamental right there, and it goes back to the talk that we spoke to about how you control the emotions and vibrations in the boat. I find that with dock staffs, and I'd like to talk a little bit about how it's structured, because, from what I've heard so far, this is a very unique situation and I love it because number one, I love it because of what it, what it's turned you into, you, um, uh, you are, are, are, um, a very, very, um interesting and intriguing person, um, as a guide, and, um, the system has has kind of done that. So, actually, why don't we go there? Why don't we talk a little bit about how your whole guide infrastructure at Anderson's is set up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. It all starts with the main office. They're the ones that are handling everything outside of us, actually taking the guests out fishing.
Speaker 1:And how many full-time guides do you have in the structure?
Speaker 2:Oh, at any given time. I want to say we have 14 to 16 full-time guides. That live there time guides and maybe a couple on that live there, that that either live in town, uh, the surrounding areas, or actually in one of the guide cabins.
Speaker 1:Uh, we have a few cabins are on site.
Speaker 2:Uh, we have two at the main lodge uh on highway 72, and then we have one other uh guide cabin, actually at the docks on laxville we call the pelican shack nice and I could tell you stories about hanging out with the guys in there take a moment and, uh, let's talk about the pelican shack well, the pelican shack.
Speaker 2:Uh, man, where do I begin? I can, uh, I could tell you some some good stories, some bad stories, or some just some funny ones, but uh we like the good, the bad and the ugly, we don't care.
Speaker 2:There's been times, but because it's so remote, you know, like you, you don't really know what to expect. You could go a few days without having your running water in there and everyone just smells terrible. It's. It's so hot, you're miserable, you want to kick each other's ass. And other other times, you know the the beers are flowing and the tunes are are bumping and you're just having a great time. And man, uh it sometimes it's like watching a bunch of monkeys trying to open a freaking door in there.
Speaker 2:Man, when you would not believe, uh, timmy came up, our mutual friend tim dawson at cc direct there will. He came up for, uh, the walleye derby one year, uh, the end of the season, staff derby, and uh, we were drinking these beers called white outs. They're, uh, they're a little bit stronger than your average beer. And he had, uh, one too many. And I told him hey, man, like, be careful, those are gonna knock you out. And we, we ended up we were locked arms with each other, standing in a circle in the guide shack, all talking about how much we love one another. It's, you know, the big bro moment and we're going around in circles talking and it got to tim and tim's the oddball out. He's the only guy in this in this circle right now. That's not a guy that it gets to him and we're all used to this level of you know, drinking after a long day of fishing. It gets to him and he just starts mumbling. It wasn't even my buddy looks at me, goes mando Timmy's speaking in cursive right now.
Speaker 2:But it brought us all closer together, things like that, and I'm happy you got to experience something like that, because that's the camaraderie that you can expect amongst the guys. You build a real brotherhood doing that sort of work day in, day out, with each other and and whatever weather you know mother nature wants to throw at you. So, yeah, that's what the Pelican guide shack would be like. It's a really good time, it's. It's actually awesome to be on the water like that, to be able to go to work right where you sleep and right where you eat, and to go out fishing on your time off. It's. It's super easy.
Speaker 2:You just you fill up a jerry can and you just go and you're on laxool yeah so did you live in the pelican shack at some point or did you live at anderson's in that guy I lived at pelican, uh, in my first uh season there and then the next two seasons I I lived at the main lodge because it was just a little bit easier for me, uh, without having a vehicle at that point in time. So I live both lives and I love both of them. To be honest with you, the guide shack is a really cool experience, yeah very nice.
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Speaker 1:So now you've got 14 to 16 guides, whether they're living at their own places or the Pelican Shack, or the guide shacks at Anderson's on the highway what so? So explain now and sorry for taking you off track, but explain to us how the infrastructure works. So you come in and the one thing that I want you to touch on at some point is 18 days of training. Like, I mean, is that, does that happen for everybody? Doesn't have to be now, but tell us about the structure. I'm totally intrigued.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. So when we first start off, everyone just kind of figures out where they're going to be living and what they're going to be doing. We have a wide variety of jobs. We have office managers, we have dock hands, we have outpost runners. Those guys and girls will be running supplies to our outpost camps, because that is something we offer at the lodge. We have breakfast chefs, we have dinner chefs, we have cleaning staff, serving staff. It is a giant operation that we have there at anderson's and everyone plays a key role in making sure that the ball rolls smoothly there. Um, but uh, as far as the guide operation goes, when we first show up, we're waiting for the ice to thaw out so we can start our guide training in my second year there I I started training new guides, so I went from being the rookie to being the teacher in a short amount of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was not, not really.
Speaker 2:No, um, yeah, I think that was because and I didn't find this out till about my third or fourth year and my rookie season I set a record for the the most number of days worked by a rookie, and my manager, rick, actually told me that. So I think from having that amount of time on the water, I was able to learn the lake, uh, or the lakes, because we guide, we guide nine lakes all together. I was able to learn all the lakes fairly quickly and, uh, I still have yet to hit a rock, uh. So nice.
Speaker 4:Knock on wood, brother. Knock on wood. Don't listen to these guys. They've been riding me for all this shit for two years. You know what it's? Because you're confident that you're a good ass.
Speaker 1:Keep it going, zack I'd like to claim the same for myself, but I've hit a few rocks.
Speaker 4:I have too, but I learned just to slow down, yeah that's exactly it.
Speaker 1:When you're with the owner and you hit rocks with guests, never hard enough that I've stopped, but you know God's gag has a few dings from me no doubt, uh, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, uh, the the training um, not everyone will get 18 days solo with with the guide trainer, but, uh, because I was the only rookie that year. That's why it happened. Typically, I'm training, uh, between four to maybe eight guides a year. Whether they all stick around, that's completely up to them and how they perform, or if they think they can do it or not. Some guys get cold feet, never even show up, so we'll we'll hire an abundance of guides and basically see what happens. We have a huge demand, so the more guides we have, the better how many days do you have for training before the season actually starts?
Speaker 2:the. The least number of days I've trained before a season starts was four, and the most I've trained uh was during covid. I had the guys for a little under a month. I want to say it was 23 to 24 days. Just because the clientele was there, americans weren't able to come.
Speaker 2:We could only take out Ontario residents, so I was able to spend a lot of time with them on some of the lakes that they might not get to learn unless they just go out themselves, which I think was not only big for them but it was really big for me.
Speaker 1:Are they still working with you?
Speaker 2:Quite. A few of them still work with me and a few of them have gone on to different lakes or different lodges. You never know where this job and this industry is going to take you right? Yeah, yeah, lots of movement, tons of movement and um, but they're all still really good friends, which I think is really awesome. Yeah, we all talk to this day and would you?
Speaker 1:would you train into the season, I guess? If you don't have, if you don't have guests um out, so the season starts. You've got your 16 guides. Only 10 of them are needed on any given day. The other guides, the other six guides, they would kind of go out and be trained. Or would you go out together and do I used to call it r and d, where you would go out and and learn the water? Um, how did that work?
Speaker 2:yeah, so it really depends on whether senior guides are available or not. Typically there's one or two senior guides that have a day off throughout the week and the rookies will continue to go out with them and and just see this type of stuff that they like. Because everyone's different. Laxool has a variety of structure and it used to be a collection of lakes that all basically turned into one with flooding back in the 30s when they created the hydroelectric dam. So everyone kind of has their own little areas they like to go to and the more areas you learn and the more guys you go out with, the better I think you'll be at the job, oh for sure.
Speaker 2:And to answer your question about guy uh training throughout the season, yes, that's something we do as well because for the, the first, you know week of the season, you're fishing a lot of rivers. Uh, we're primarily a walleye lodge and Laxul is unbelievable walleye fishing. So you start off in a lot of the river channels and there's there's rivers in the south, there's rivers in the north, the east, the west, all over. Um. So you'll typically start off showing the guys just main routes, how to get from the dock to the furthest point we're allowed to travel to until we get outpost territory. That's the main part of uh training is. I always tell guides and this is something joe told me too guides don't get lost ever so. Yeah, you know you have to nail that main route down again and again, and again, um, and that's, they don't get lost by using a gps.
Speaker 1:If your gps goes down, you need to know where you are exactly right.
Speaker 2:So, uh, that is is the number one thing that we're showing them to begin, and then, as the season goes on, the fish move. So I'd say usually about a month into the season the fish can already start to go from their typical like spawning areas or the shallow basin areas, and they're starting to move, especially those bigger fish. So once that time happens, I start letting the guides know, even if I'm not training. Just pay attention to where other boats are going, especially the other lodges, because they've been doing this for a while and you can learn a lot without being in that boat with the guide, just by watching their movements.
Speaker 4:Pay attention to where the wind's blowing from and where they're fishing on any given day, because you might learn three or four really good spots without actually having to fish them yeah, well nowadays, yeah, like you can look at the map orlando right and like if you're looking at a guy sitting on a point 20, 20 yards off of it and you're 200 yards away, you can zoom into your stuff and go okay, that guy's fishing a quick drop right here, or he's fishing this okay, so maybe I need to go over and fish that style of structure that's very simple, absolutely that's a great.
Speaker 4:That's a great tool for that. We. We teach our young guys that too, that you should be watching.
Speaker 1:Local knowledge is well and and I do the same thing on the on the french river, uh, if I see a local boat that I I have seen around and I see them sitting somewhere fishing, I'll go onto the gps, throw a quick waypoint there. But the, the key thing that you said, orlando, that, um, that I've never really thought about, but it's just common sense. And this is where this is where the, the um, the elite start to show their colors. And you, you didn't just say, yeah, you look for where those guys are moving to. You also said and you went like two or three layers deeper you think about where the wind is coming from, what is the temperature right now and when you can add those things together, now you're really starting to pattern. And that, uh, that was a key thing that you mentioned and I just wanted to point that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely that. That'll really uh separate uh you from being, you know, just an average rookie guide, to you really standing out on the dock as a rookie guide and uh let me ask you this question really quickly, because it kind of it's kind of it fits good right here.
Speaker 1:Do you keep a log, a daily log?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's something I started doing when I was a rookie, even a dockhand, out on Eagle Lake. I kept a log of everything, even if it had nothing to do with fishing, if it was just a funny conversation I had with a guest. Uh, I wrote it down and I don't know at the time why I started to do it, but I can see why now it was such a big thing for me. Um, controlling the emotions in the boat when, when you have things that keep popping up that are stopping you from being successful out on the water. Share a funny story with the guests, try to connect with them in a way that isn't just, you know, putting them on fish and watching them smile that way, try to try to make them laugh, try to become friends with them and get to know them on another level and and good things you know know will happen eventually.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know, and that's very interesting because I've I've had the pleasure of working with some of the finest anglers on the planet Peter Bowman, ang Viola, the guides that I employed, and the very best of the best, and, and again, this is another. This is another point that I think people should really take note of, especially and and this goes for any kind of a way of life, and it's something that I I do a little bit now, but it's it's just that it's keeping a, a log, a diary. Pat Tryon, one of my guides that worked for me for years, he kept a detailed. He still got it to this day. Every fishing day he goes out he's got a detailed log about that day. So I can say to Pat hey, you remember that um, that um muskie trip that we did six years ago. Where, what, what time of year was it? And he'll go through and he can tell me the exact days, the temperature, the water temperature, what we caught and where we caught it. And the other person that does that, uh, is Peter Bowman and and Pete from Fish in Canada. Man, he keeps a log like that.
Speaker 1:And it's just, I figured by listening to you that you were one of those people, and that is another one of those little traits that propel people to being extremely successful. Um so yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. Um so yeah, keep, uh, keep on going with uh, with your, with the, with the guides. Um so, um, yeah, like I mean that log and uh, and, and I, I'm intrigued. Well, like I mean it makes sense, when you're on water, this big um, that your first training is simply just locational training, and during the locational training, because you're moving around so much, you're watching other boats as you're training throughout the year. So continue on from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I guess I can kind of transition this with another teaching from my mentor there. Uh yeah, from Joe big Joe.
Speaker 1:And Joe's last name is just because I want people to know who Joe is.
Speaker 2:Joe Wesley Uh.
Speaker 1:Wesley.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, uh, one of the one of the things he taught me was uh, you know, you're not always going to be taking out the Pete Bowmans and the Angelo Violas and fishing. You're going to be taking out a lot of people who have seen the ads, they've seen the TV shows and they want to do what the people on TV are doing, but they don't necessarily have the tools or experience to do exactly that. So every group is kind of retraining, reteaching, getting them ready for the next day so that you can kind of step it up. And uh, you know, in the springtime things are are very tricky. Everything's shallow. Laxville has a ton of wood structure. Uh, you know, in the springtime things are, all are very tricky. Everything's shallow. Lax has a ton of wood structure. Uh, you know fallen trees, uh, deadhead stumps, a lot of life laying in those, those black bottom shallow bays where there's just a ton of snags.
Speaker 2:So I think, uh, there's a lot of learning curves associated with with time learning curves associated with time of year and just teaching the guests how to fish efficiently without slowing things down so constantly snagging, messing up their line, messing up their gear. You see it quite a bit when you first start with a new party, especially groups that haven't been up to the lake before they might come under gun. They, they, they brought their ultra light gear with three or four pound tests and they're casting for pike without leaders. And these are things that, as guides, you're sitting there just shaking your head Like what is this guy doing right now? What was he thinking You're? You want to catch a 40 inch pike and you have your, your grandpa's walleye rod from 1965. Like buddy, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the old damn quick 440 and Zebco pro staff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what, what am I? Uh, what am I? Good memories from this season. There was a guy. He lost a fish and, uh, he snapped his rod in the morning, losing uh, it wasn't even a very big fish, but he finally hooked into a big fish later on and he snapped that rod too and he goes man, what did I do wrong? And I said you know what you brought that rod. That's what you did. Yeah, wow, those those things like they happen quite a bit, but you can't let them get to you. You just have to reiterate that you know, when we're out here, we're fishing a different caliber of fish and you have to be ready for it, and having the right gear for the job is huge, so definitely.
Speaker 1:Do you have the right gear at Anderson's? So do you have the right gear at Anderson's Like can you? Can you look at a guy and inspect his equipment and say, but you know, you want to catch a muskie, this stuff just isn't going to do it here, Do you?
Speaker 2:guys either lend or rent or sell the proper equipment? Yeah, we do. We have a wide variety of rental gear, from walleye rods to lake trail rods, musky rods, pike rods. And it's funny you ask that actually because as soon as the guests start walking down the ramp at the dock like all our boats are really close we're talking and we're looking not even at our own guests but at the other guides guests and we're looking as they're coming down the dock with what they're holding in their hands. And sometimes we look at each other and we just kind of, you know, start laughing like okay yeah, it's gonna be one of those days.
Speaker 2:Cody's gonna have a real fun day. Yeah, exactly so. Uh, what I started doing was keeping extra gear in my truck. Uh like I bring a lot of my own personal rods and reels out, you know, uh like bigger sticks and heavy duty reels, just in case you know someone like, let's say there's a kid that really wants to catch a muskie, but he doesn't have the gear and they didn't have time to rent or they just didn't know. Just go hand the kid a rod and you know what I mean. Like if it breaks, it breaks.
Speaker 1:I think, as a guide to have, you don't need the most expensive gear on the planet, but to have adequate gear that you keep and you can lend out the benefit, like you know, nevermind the lodge or whatever, but as a guide, you, if you yourself have that, you know decent equipment that you can give to the right person the value of that for you as a guide number one in tips, because you're increasing the, the odds that if this person does put that bait in front of a trophy fish or a large fish or whatever, you're increasing the odds of you getting that fish in the boat. And the experience then goes up tenfold and where you know it could have been one of those ones where, um, you know the, the, the guest uses a inferior equipment and and loses the fish. And that is a, is a huge um lesson that I learned about and I probably told it. But um, um, I used to fish Lake Nipigon a lot and um, we would go up to Nipigan and go on to a cabin cruiser that pulled four aluminums behind it and set out onto the lake and I would spend you know this is back in the late 90s, early 2000s, and I would spend on that trip, you know $700 for the week, which was a lot of money back then. I would spend $300 on booze. You know, go out and buy a fishing, a fish finder, a portable fish finder to take, and, and you know, have have expensive rods and and good line and I caught an absolute beautiful speckled trout and that was really the focus of our trip.
Speaker 1:And this fish was I don't know. I didn't get it to the boat, I just saw it jump and I would say, if I had to take an honest guess, it was somewhere between eight and 10 pounds. And the snap swivel that I had on straightened out A two cent snap swivel. And what I learned and what you're saying and the thing that people should take from this is it doesn't matter how much money you spend on your rod and reel. The whole system is as strong as its weakest link. And for me that day, its weakest link was a two cent snap swivel.
Speaker 1:And after that, and realizing how much time and effort it took to put me in that moment where I had my trophy on the end of the line, it was a two cent bullshit piece of equipment that cost it for me. And it's great that you look at your guests and that's part of the guest education. And not only is that part of the guest education, but that come from your guide. Training to be able to say this is important. It's important that the guest has good equipment because it makes a difference for them, first and foremost, and their experience, but it also makes a difference for me because I'm doing a great service for these people and it shows up in the tip and the experience overall and it fits number two, your number two a lesson and people will take that and learn from it, and when you're providing the lesson, that's something tangible that they're getting for their money.
Speaker 4:So that's you know what the best part about a lesson, too, stevie, is? The lesson part doesn't just stop with them, no, no Is that they might go home, and I've seen it firsthand. You know, rexy, rexy Burkhead, there, you know, we gave him a couple tips one day on something, on tying something up at the dock and something minor. And I remember a couple days later him down with his boy and he was teaching him to tie something new and he started showing him this knot because it made more sense. Right, it was the progression that that leaves your facility after is is equally as rewarding. It's amazing, right, that that's those teachings are going to follow that line and, as outdoorsmen and outdoors women, that's what we want. Yeah, you want that to grow.
Speaker 1:So now Orlando. Spring is difficult and now I realize that you guys are actually training from ice out to ice in. What are some of those lessons that you learned about the different seasons? Where do the you know, how do the fish kind of move? What are some of the key things that you learned throughout the season when you were training that were key to your success so far?
Speaker 2:I'd say one of the biggest things I've learned is, uh one, not to overfish your spots, and that's for a number of reasons, uh one, being you, you never want to take too much from what you're sort of counting on. Um, you know, like we're trying to catch shore lunch 95 of our days. There's very few days where we're not actually cooking a shore lunch and uh, so you never, you never, want to take that's not an option.
Speaker 1:Not an option. You got to cook a shore lunch.
Speaker 2:You have to cook a shore lunch and I personally have never not been able to provide shore lunch. That's something I pride myself on. Guests ask it all the time what happens if we don't catch lunch? I just sit there and say that doesn't happen. We're catching fish, and the way I think about it is like it's your personal piggy bank. If you take from your piggy bank, it's it's going to be empty, right. So you have to keep, you have to keep things in there uh.
Speaker 2:Number two is the fish move and they move far, they move fast. So, like I said uh earlier, you might be fishing the river channels. They're all really close to our dock where we start on laxool. Um, I can think of three distinct areas on the lake where fish are spawning in in great numbers. I believe the m&r uh estimates that between the first river channel we fish at pelican falls, to the uh, the second uh following river channel, there's um a population of three, three million walleye spawning at uh in the springtime. So um, there's just a ton of fish there in abundance, all in one tiny little area.
Speaker 2:But then overnight they might travel uh 30 miles up the lake and go to the next sort of area where they're going to be hanging out for maybe the next two, three, even four weeks, depending on the water temperatures. So you have to be ready to move and you can't be fishing those spots for too long. Like you, you have to quickly make the decision. Okay, this isn't what it was like yesterday, or this isn't what it should be like right now. They've they've already moved. I have to get out of here and follow the fish. There's no sense in fishing dead water so what is the important now?
Speaker 1:now that um, now that um, um, you're understanding this, which is, which is gold, like I mean understanding movements and how fast it can happen. That's key. So next question what kind of a role do your electronics play in deciding whether they're there or whether they're not? Are you using a live scope? Are you using a traditional sonar? How, what, what, um, um, um level of, uh, of importance are the electronics and what are you using?
Speaker 2:uh. So for me personally, I don't own live scope and I don't ever really use it. Uh, while I'm guiding, if I'm using live scope, it's it's my friend's live scope and we use it in ice fishing or trolling for muskies in the winter, sort of thing. But for me personally, I just I use a standard Lowrance sonar with 2D and side imaging. In the springtime, sometimes your sonar is only really good for knowing the depth because the fish are hugging on the bottom so much when you're fishing on them vertically, or they're so shallow, like pushed up into the shorelines, that you can't even really get on top of them. So, um, I would say early season it's more so just about trusting your gut and and believing that the fish are there. You're not going to know they're there until you actually keep your line wet and fish the surrounding area.
Speaker 2:I've had times where on opener, I go out and they're in 18 feet and I can see them on the graph and you just catch the living daylights out of them. And I've had other times where you know you pull into a spot and the wind is pounding in there. You pull into a spot and the wind is pounding in there. You can see bait fish swimming around everywhere with with your eyes and you just have to actually kind of pluck around until you find the quote-unquote spot on the spot and then, once you do that, it is. It's just insanely you, you can't get your line in the water quick enough, uh. But I would definitely say, um, you don't need the crazy top of the line sonar at any given time throughout the year, because if, if you know what you're doing and you're they're fishing the right stuff, given the time of the year you can, you can find fish fairly easily for walleye anyway. Yeah, on lack school. So yeah, just a just standard 2d sonar, really nice.
Speaker 1:Now, what are some we? We've talked a lot about the patterns in the spring, the river mouths shallow, that stuff, the speed in which these fish are moving overnight. What are some kind of?
Speaker 2:typical patterns that you look for as you progress into summer and then into fall. I'd say number one is just watching the bait fish and where they're sitting in the water column. That's huge for me, um, you know, like if they're hanging up really high still, then I know I'm I'm not going deep yet. Uh, once the bait starts to school up and move a little bit deeper into the water column, maybe midway down, um, cause typically in the spring you're not fishing any more than 16 feet. There's been a couple years where they're in 18 or 20 feet, but that's, that's very uh on. Yeah, very rare, it's uncommon is it tannic water?
Speaker 1:is it stained fairly heavily or yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, we have tea stained water up here and, uh, there's a lot of current and and a lot of the spots too, so that plays a big factor. But, uh, as the season progresses, you can kind of expect certain things to happen which push the fish deeper, and one of those is, uh, the mayfly bites, or sorry, the mayfly hatches, and, depending on what phase they're in, where they're hatching in the water column, uh, they they'll be in certain areas. So, typically, when I start to see on my graph like I'm pulling up to my spring spots where I'm going to be fishing maybe you know, 14 to 16 feet if I'm coming out of 40, 40 to 60 feet of water, and the whole bottom of my graph is lit up with these little specks, I see what. What I see is these larvae hatching out of the mud and what I can then expect is that wind, because wind is key.
Speaker 2:Everything I fish, the wind is pumping in and I can expect all that stuff that's down deep, eventually it's going to get blown up into those shallows where these fish are currently roaming. So once that starts to happen, I know that they're going to start dropping a little bit deeper. Because the fish are moving, they're a little more advantageous. They're going to start taking that bait and then, as time goes on, these mayflies are going to go into their next phase. They're going to hatch in the shallow waters where the weeds are starting to emerge, and everyone calls them mayflies, but typically up here they don't hatch until June. Hell, sometimes I've even seen them just before july starts, where the mayflies really start to hatch. I'm sure you've seen that too well, uh, so even down here yeah same thing and yeah, shadfly too, shadfly is is there.
Speaker 1:They're later, like. I mean, sometimes we're looking at, you know, beginning of july yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's something we all kind of look for and something I'll explain to the guides as the season goes on. Like you know where the spawn spots are a little bit easy and, honestly, once you've been shown the general areas where to fish the walleye spawns, the real guides really start to show themselves once those fish move. So if you can stay on top of where the food's going to be for the fish that you're looking for, it's just going to be a piece of cake for you.
Speaker 1:And that speaks to food right, and I've always heard and believe that the movements of fish are driven by very primal forces. You know what they're going to eat, where they're going to have sex and you know so what are some of the fall, what are you looking for in the fall as well? And then just end? We'll end this thought with your favorite time of year to fish.
Speaker 2:In the fall you can really have a mix-up of scenarios. But typically what I start to get excited for is that, once the turnover is kind of already set in, you can see big schools of bait fish and primarily Cisco or lake herring. Uh, they're going to hang out in the areas that are just a little bit deeper than you'd normally fish, typically those areas where, let's say, you're you're fishing like your, your summer or late summer spots, your casting and the weeds sort of deal, um, the spots where you'd actually stop fishing. You'd be like, okay, let's move to the next spot, and this is something that I, that I do for big fish. Uh, from the start of fall right up until or, yeah, right up until ice, those spots where you would stop to fish, you pull up your trolling motor and leave. I start to look for big schools of bait fish on those deeper breaks, uh, typically areas that have some sort of pinch point or bottleneck.
Speaker 1:Um, if I were talking, we're talking walleyes.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, wallet. Well, everything being a multi-species guide, yeah, you really start to see the uh, the connection between the fish behavior related to the migration of bait fish and what they're going to be eating, and this transitions perfectly. It's my favorite time of the year is fall fishing. I love the colors, I love being able to wear a sweater all day, feel kind of some cold wind on my face. It just keeps me refreshed, as opposed to fishing in the dead heat of the summer. And it's my favorite time of the year because you've probably heard this saying. I'm sure you have a lot of fishermen have 90% of the fish are in 10% of the lake, and this is, I think it holds true at this time of the year more than most times of the year. Um, so yeah, that's typically what I'm doing is is fishing those, those deeper areas, just kind of always keeping my my eye open on my, on my sonar, for those deeper schools of bait fish. Um, in the areas that typically you, typically you, wouldn't be fishing anymore.
Speaker 1:So do you. Being in a multi-species area, do you find that these patterns? There are some species of fish that travel together more than others, Like if you're seeing smallies moving in deeper, can you expect that maybe the northerns or muskies might be doing the same? Like, with all of those different species of fish interacting and basically they might not all share the exact same forage, but a lot of them are eating the same things? Are there any correlations between sport fish species that you've noticed?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. You just mentioned bass. I will say that I think once the bass kind of move out of their shallow areas that's what I'm already thinking in my mind that the pike are no longer going to be in the shallow areas. I mean you can catch fish shallow all year long. Studies show that. Experience shows that. But there is definitely a time of the year where the biggest and baddest fish in the lake will hang out a little bit deeper than you'd expect, and that has been one of the biggest learning curves for me, especially with pike fishing. Biggest learning curves for me, especially with pike fishing.
Speaker 2:Um, I find that in my first couple seasons I would spend a little bit too much time casting in those shallow bays, the areas adjacent to their spawning locations. They're not going to be in the black bottom bays anymore, uh, sometimes they're not even hanging out in the thick cabbage, they're, they're down deep, uh, and it's not necessarily just because the food's there, it's because they can survive in that water temperature, uh and that depth much easier than living in the shallows and they can preserve themselves a lot longer. So usually, yeah, exactly. And there's something that I started doing a few seasons ago is once I am almost certain that the pike aren't going to be in shallow or right off the weed beds. I'll start trolling huge lures and for some reason I find it kind of coincides with that mayfly bite when they're hatching just a little bit deeper, starting to push into the shallows into that full fly phase.
Speaker 2:I will start trolling huge lures and you will be surprised how many giant of every species you catch walleye pike. Sometimes you get bass hitting these massive crankbaits or whatever big lures. You're trolling swimbaits. That's something that I started doing a lot more. And man, does it ever pay off?
Speaker 1:Oh for sure, 100%. So, listen, you live up there. Now. What do you do once the season is over, much like right now, how do you spend your time? And I, I had uh like, uh, um, my guide and uh that I had employed, who was the equivalent of of Joe, uh, his name was, uh is Billy, commander and Billy I I used to tell all of the guests that, uh, billy was born out on one of them, rocks right, native, wonderful guy, dry, sense of humor and what he would say.
Speaker 1:And over the years we kind of had a bit of a routine, and Billy's not much of a routine guy, believe me. But at the end of the year, when all the guests are there, you know, either in the down at the dock, or in the dining room, or in the main lodge, wherever I run into Billy, I'd always say hey, Billy, what are you going to do for the winter? And Billy, in his way, he'd turn around, he'd say I'm going to wait for the spring. So you know, wait for summer. That's what he does in the winter Wait for summer, wait for summer, stevie. So what do you do in the winter?
Speaker 2:Well, I, actually I started working at. It's a school for indigenous youth from all over Northwestern Ontario. It's a high school and it's a live-in school, so I, I work there as, uh, it's basically like I'm their father. I have 12 boys that live in a house and and I take care of them. But we are half a kilometer from the anderson's dock, we're on the opposite side of pelican falls, so, uh, part of the job is providing traditional experiences for them and I'm a fishing guide, so I mean I'm going to take them fishing. So I keep fishing and that just keeps me on my toes. Ice fishing, even the late fall fishing still, we'll fish from the shoreline and stuff like that, but ice fishing is how I kind of stay on top of what the fish are going to be doing and and where they're going to be hanging out and I typically I find that the the spots that are really hot in the middle of the winter.
Speaker 2:you know, once the fish push deep again, those spots are going to be pretty good in the summertime. So I usually go out and I look for more areas to fish for the summer. So I'm doing a lot of my R and D? Um and, you know, just breaking down new areas as best as I can. Um, and another thing I do in the winter is I I started making my own musky lures musky and pike lures uh, a few years ago it was a hard body, yeah, all out of wood. I started doing spinner baits and hair jigs and stuff like that too. Um, just, uh, because it's this, this, the stuff that I like to use when I fish anyway. But, uh, I spend a lot of time in the winter just working on my lures and uh, getting them ready for for sale in the spring and summertime and making my own, make tweaks to the baits, stuff like that to make them fish exactly the way I want to fish them. So I keep myself pretty busy throughout the winter and I always got fish on the brain.
Speaker 4:You're going to have to let us know that buddy, We'll have to put them over in our store. What do you call them?
Speaker 2:For sure, my company's Landit Lure Company it came from a nickname. Yeah, it came from a nickname. My company it came from a nickname. Yeah, it came from a nickname, uh, my cousin nick. He always called me growing up land it and uh, I don't know if it's the hockey player in them. You know they always got funny nicknames for guys and stuff like that. But uh, that kind of stuck with me and once I started making these lures and in high school, uh I was like man, that's the most perfect name ever. I got to use that one day and in in COVID I actually incorporated my own company and I've been doing that ever since. And so that's an awesome, awesome passion to have, man. It's a great way to put your artistic touch into things. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:And especially when you're on a resource where you can actually efficiently use them. When you're on a resource where you can actually efficiently use them, you're in a business where you see so many different situations where you have a bait and you think if it would just do this, I know I could catch it, or I know it would catch, and then be able to make those tweaks into that bait to try and achieve what you wanted to do. And that's very cool and I do use a lot of custom baits like that. Paul Fisterio is Boss Shad and he's done a few series for us. He did the Canadian series for us and you want to talk about big lures man? They are some of the biggest made and he's. The Canadian series, from what I hear, is no more. So there's a few left, but I know I bought a couple. But yeah, that is so cool. So you teach in a school and you're a father figure. Does that continue in the summertime or is that just for the winter?
Speaker 2:So it starts up at the end of August and I work a four-day on four-day off schedule so I can keep guiding on my four days off, which is really nice, and that'll go right up until May, and usually right when that stops I'm starting the guide training for the new guides in Anderson. So it works out perfectly honestly. I keep myself busy all year long.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. And are you married? Do you have family? Like I know, guiding is one of those occupations that is very difficult to manage and also have a family at the same time. It would be much like Will you out working the oil fields? Have you figured out a way to have a family? If so, what are you doing?
Speaker 2:So right now I have a girlfriend. It's a long distance relationship. It's challenging sometimes. You know you work long days on the water, you come back, you have very little energy, but you just got to have balance. And sometimes it seems like it's very tough to have that balance.
Speaker 2:But uh, buddy, I understand yeah, you just you gotta keep working hard in all aspects of your life and and it's important to stay happy, having that balance if you're focused primarily on on work and you can't take time for yourself, I think it ends up showing up in the boat when you're just drained by the end of the season. You know what I mean. So, uh, it's definitely challenging, but uh, yeah, I live up here on my own. My family's still back in Brantford and I'll go see them uh four to five times a year. Whether I'm driving or flying uh out of Thunder Bay, uh, I still always make sure I have time to see my family because they're what grounds me. But yeah, it's challenging, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so listen. Last question probably.
Speaker 2:I hate pigeonholing myself into that, but would you, with the experience that you've gained? Is potentially owning a lodge in the future something that you would look at, 100%, I think. Ever since I was a little kid, I've always wanted to have a job or a career in fishing, and owning a lodge is kind of like the culmination of everything I've been doing so far. I have the accounting degree. I work as a fishing guide now I train the fishing guides even with my job outside of guiding with the school.
Speaker 2:The mentor role that I have constantly passing knowledge just not just you know fishing, but life, um, is something I think would transition nicely into owning a lodge and and doing that sort of thing. And I mean just having a family outside of your bloodline is something I think is super important. You know, whether you're a crazy sports fan like I'm, a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan, which kind of seems like a dysfunctional family right now, but I still love them Um, you know, just having that sort of, uh, that thing that you can, you can put energy into and and try to build up constantly, up constantly, is something that's very important to me and, man, I would love the opportunity to own a fishing lodge one day.
Speaker 1:So, listen, I want to give you an opportunity to ask a former lodge owner, because I jumped into it not knowing my ass from a hole in the ground. I was a sheet metal mechanic to operating successfully a fishing lodge for a decade, and now Willie has been in the thick of it as a lodge owner for the last three years. Is there any questions that you have that you would like to ask? And if nothing comes to your mind at this point, I would love to extend to you the opportunity to maybe come back on the show at some point and think about all of the questions that you have to get you to that point. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I think it's a little unfair for me to throw this on you at this point, because I think it's a great show. I think that, with the resources that Will and I can bring, if you've got questions about how to try and get to that end game, whether it's financial, whether it's operational, all of the above I would definitely and I'm sure Will is in the same spot make myself available to talk to you about that. But do you have one question that kind of comes to the forefront?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. Maybe this one, Will could answer, because he was a fishing guide for many years and now he's in that ownership position ownership ownership slash management role and how did you sort of, uh, manage your, your emotions with the total change? Because when you, when you're guiding, you're out there with the clients, you're the one making the trip for them, and once you get into that management ownership role, you're the one that you see them come into the lodge. You set them up, you send them out with your guide and then you come back and you you're not in the thick of it with them. You only sort of see the looks on their faces when they come back, whether it was a good day or bad. How did you deal with that change and what were some of the things that you were feeling, uh, when you gave up guiding?
Speaker 4:that's a great question, orlando. Um, it's something I think about all daily. Actually, I don't think I've ever told steven this yet, but uh, no, it's. It was a different thing going from guiding to the lodge, ownership for the for the reason of you're the guy standing on the bench that everyone has something, that, something that if you get into it someday, you will see very quickly that the way you want to do things, or you're taking four or five different guys opinions and what you've learned and making a way that you feel fit, and I strongly suggest, stay on that path.
Speaker 4:Don't don't diverse, because people push you in that direction. Don't try and retain as much information as you can, but remember where you came from and remember what got you there, cause a lot of times are changing. Was what you see, not what everyone else sees. Right, and I think I know a lot like it's really hard. I mean, our fans already can tell by. You know they know me enough now, but my voice and my stories and my lifestyle and I'm all passion from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed and you want to make sure that you it's really hard to watch.
Speaker 4:You know all my buddies, whether they're contract friends of mine at the lodge or a lot of our guides that we've had over the last few years. They either train me or I trained them over years ago, you know, and but it's hard to watch them come in and not be that guy and not be that guy right. Like there was a time, you know, at T2 and at Maynard. You know when the guests get off the plane you're the guy that they want and there's 10 people and you say you stay humble and you come in. But like there's days I had 20 fish over 26 inches, you know. And there's other guys that we worked with that were on the same caliber and level with people. But you don't ever you kind of keep humble about it, but when you aren't that guy, it hurts you Because and I, it's something that you that that's really it's like, it's like being John Paveris right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:When you're the captain, and then all the no, seriously, and then, because you have no like, you have as much control as you can teach, but you're not on the water and you're not on the shore lunch and you're you don't know how many places you try and be and you know. The other thing is, too, buddy, is to make sure that stay to yourself. That's, that's true to what I, that's a, that's a key thing. You know, you're a, you're a smart guy and I I think you would succeed greatly in this, in this, uh, in this career, buddy, and I think you're on the right path. I think you're an amazing human and I love hearing stories from you, tim from tim and I loved I loved hooking up in toronto, there, me, you and kristin yeah, going out for dinner there.
Speaker 4:That was lovely. You're not even far. It's the crow flies. You're like man. You're probably only 40 minutes for me, as the crow flies, like the anderson's is straight east of northern yeah, I was surprised that we were that close.
Speaker 2:When, uh, when tim came up to visit you there, he, he sent me his pin on the map and I said, holy smokes, man, you're like yeah, you gotta hook up this winter and go laker fishing, for sure, and hang out, man, because I'm up here all the time.
Speaker 4:So 100, but I hope that answers your question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've always got time for you well, willie, that, um, that was a first of. It was a wonderful question, orlando and Willie, it was a. It was a great answer. I thoroughly enjoyed that. So thank you both for that. And, orlando, thank you so much for coming on to Diaries with us. Your insights are insights are outstanding. Your trajectory in your path of life is proper. It's wonderful. I can see that you have passion, you're creating it and what you're doing for yourself, um, right now, um that I can see. You're a young guy like I mean, I uh you look like shit when, when I first saw you because folks, we're we're on, we're on squad cast, so you can't see orlando, but I can and I thought he was like 18, but I know that can't be right.
Speaker 1:So, how old are you?
Speaker 2:I'll be 29 in a couple of weeks. Here, December 7th, I turned 29.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, just a decade.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I mean for you to be building a life where you're doing well, you're doing what you love, you're teaching, you're fishing, you're guiding, you're aspiring to do awesome things.
Speaker 1:Just take every once in a while, take a minute and just turn inwards and appreciate, use gratitude to know that you've got something great going and not many people in this world do. When I decided to buy a fishing lodge, I really hated my working life. It was hard to get out of bed in the morning and to the point where where I uprooted my, my whole life at that point and and I was married with with three kids under the age of like five and uh, and went and bought a lodge and um, you're doing, what you're doing is awesome and um, um, if there's any advice, it would be to try and get your, your girlfriend or your, your partner or whoever to, to um, understand what you're doing and be part of it. Right, like I mean, we just had um, um, um, um, Mr Clark on and wow, what he has done, what Wayne has done and what he's doing. He is a guy.
Speaker 1:If you don't know Wayne Clark, listen to that podcast, bud, and because it sounds like he had different paths. But you are organized, dude, and congratulations and thank you for being on thank you so much for having me guys.
Speaker 2:It's uh, it's been an absolute treat and, uh, I honestly, from where I started off to where I am now this is the second podcast I've done and it's an absolute blast to be on here just to talk fishing, uh, with you guys. It's, it blows my mind to see how I went from just fishing in my backyard to to moving up here and guiding for a living and getting to know guys like you in the industry.
Speaker 2:It really it blows my mind and I just hope that anyone out there that's listening all the all the fans, if ever know you think you want to be a guide one day, but you don't know if you have what it takes. You just got to throw yourself. Yeah, just do it, man. Throw yourself out there and see if you have what it takes. You won't know until you try and you know you might not be successful the first couple times at it, but you're only going to get better. You just got to push yourself. So you know, someone's motivated by hearing this and and hearing the stories that you guys you know share with, with everyone and the amazing guests you have on. Just it motivates people, because I know hearing stories in the past when I was a kid like this definitely motivated me absolutely wow.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. And and you know as much as you say you love coming on and talking fishing um, I love talking fishing too, but the magic in in our conversation had nothing to do with fishing. It was all about your philosophy in life and what you've learned to this point and, um, um, and and really eloquently um, uh, being able to convey those thoughts to the people that are listening. So, again, thank you very much. And, folks, this brings us to the point where I'm going to tell you to go to the fishincanadacom website and check out all the giveaways. Those giveaways are key. We're giving stuff to awesome people every day and you need to go check that out. Wow, I can hear Ange screaming at me because I'm not sure it people every day and you need to go check that out. Wow, I can hear Ange screaming at me because I'm not sure it's every day but it's enough.
Speaker 1:So get out there and get in on the giveaways and folks. If you have any questions or comments, please like subscribe. If you subscribe on the platform you're listening to us to, you'll get your little reminder that we've dropped a new episode every Wednesday and looking forward to hearing from you folks. You know how to get us. It's will at nordicpointlodgecom and steven at fishincanadacom and folks. Thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner. Stories of the.
Speaker 4:North. I'm a good old boy, never meanin' no harm, I'll be all you ever saw, been reeling in the hog Since the day I was born, bending my rock.
Speaker 3:Stretching my line.
Speaker 4:Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine. I'll be making my way, the only way. I know how working hard and sharing the North with all of my pals.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm a good old boy, I bought a lodge and lived my dream and now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems.
Speaker 6:Yeah, Back in 2016,. Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.
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Speaker 7:Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm, now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 6:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
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