The Essential Guide to Fly-In Fishing | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 169

Name: The Essential Guide to Fly-In Fishing | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 169
Uploaded: 2025-05-03T04:12:38+00:00
Duration: 1 h 23 min 24 s

0:05
[Applause] this episode of Outdoor Journal Radio is brought to you in part by the Invasive
0:12
Species Center protecting Canada's land and water from invasive species freedom
0:18
Cruise Canada rent the boat own the memories jmbb Cycle Marine your home for
0:25
all things powersports boats and equipment and sail the ultimate
0:31
destination for your outdoor adventures thank you thank you thank you peace and
0:38
love peace and love peace and love welcome to the show Outdoor Journal
0:43
Radio the podcast peter Bowman i'm And the rest of the assembly the good
0:49
looking team that we have they'll introduce They'll introduce themselves later on um is it my imagination yes sir there it
0:58
is it is yes what are you imagining me me without clothes sitting here that's all I need to know imagination cuz I
1:05
noticed our guest special guest today is uh uh Melanie Villu another female uh
1:11
angler outdoors person we had one recently on the show didn't we catherine catherine yeah yes so maybe Dean's uh
1:19
they're all call he is an attractive package right so they're probably all calling them up and saying "Dean um can
1:26
you can I can If I had a daughter of marrying age I would just like push her right into that into his web." And Dean
1:33
how would you feel about that as your father-in-law right there oh wouldn't that be great that' be a tough spot it's a conflict of interest conflict of
1:40
interest for sure you'd be running pretty quick young man
1:46
you would All of that time you spent in the gym would come in handy trust me
1:53
i love it oh that's awesome that is an awful thing though what's that it is an
1:58
awful thing now you won't experience it because you have two sons two boys yeah but that's an awful It just done me that
2:06
I'm joking right but but I'm not joking well you're very protective of your It's an awful thing when when when when you
2:13
have daughters now fortunately for me they're all you know grown up and then they have kids and all that but like it
2:21
was stressful i bet you it would be it has to be cuz you know it's funny that we're we're guys we are
2:29
absolute morons at that age at that young age like you know nothing but you
2:36
claim to know everything yeah and and and and when that urge
2:42
strikes oh my god it's just it's awful it's an awful thing anyways just thought
2:48
I would You didn't go through that though Dean right no no i've been like this forever dean's smart he's been smart like he's always been smart just
2:54
ask him he told me one time I don't know what pro here we go
3:02
i don't know what we were talking about and he looked at me in a ser No I've even as a kid I was always very serious
3:10
it's true anyways wonderful show uh Melanie is
3:17
general general manager at Hurst Air which is an iconic operation in Northern
3:24
Ontario it's been around longer than we have and uh it's truly one of those
3:32
uh wonderful Canadian brands you know when you think of Hurst Air like that's
3:38
it man you're going out to the backwoods right that's what familyowned handed
3:44
down generation to generation absolutely wonderful place so we're going to talk to her a little later on about uh some
3:50
of the opportunities that they have they It's not a lodge operation and it's flying and uh they outpost camps outpost
3:57
camps so they fly you in drop you off and then pick you up three five seven 10 days later and truly an adventure we've
4:04
had the opportunity to work with them on several occasions several episodes that you've watched on the Fishing Canada
4:10
show originated from Hurst Air so we'll get into all that with Melanie here in a
4:16
few moments uh but first Mr bowman uh no there there we go oh look at that
4:24
up there huh oh my so I'm liking the look of that what that is is the uh
4:31
that's the original Fishing Canada hat circa mid80s what does circa mean from
4:38
the mid80s why' you say from i like circa i like to show you how you know
4:43
how I That's one of those words that I hate circa it just I want you to know
4:48
that I'm a thespian okay i know a couple of thespians oh my god i just I just wanted you to know
4:55
that and uh they have reproduced it so that's
5:02
available now at the store that's the original Fishing Canada logoed hat come on now now been brought back and
5:08
reproduced i like Oh for a limited time only I'm told uh but it's available at
5:14
one with stickers one without is that what that is for the young lads they like to keep those things on don't they nowadays little sticker things they seem
5:21
to have that tag hanging off the back and that it's a look it's a look it's a thing there's a bunch of damnians i
5:28
don't know how they could wear that stuff uh anyways uh that and much more all
5:35
available at the store shop.fishingcanada.com or
5:40
fishingcanada.com and just push the store button the stuff we're wearing here can stuff we're wearing i I put my
5:46
uh You get that style i got this dial my rainbow trout on today micas
5:51
uncle Ronus micas micas yeah that guy my kiss it says my kiss the very thing at
5:56
the very bottom of your shirt says my kiss did your honey get you that yeah maybe my kiss you got to give her a
6:02
little kissy nice yeah or my wife one of the two by I can't remember so nice uh
6:09
where were we uh listener feedback mr bowman comes to us from Tight Lines-d
6:17
i see i love these these handles they're great uh via YouTube these are great in
6:23
response to our talk on the fishless Elliot Lake ice fishing derby so we
6:28
talked about this uh there it is right there 182 anglers skunked uh but you
6:33
still got great prizes and they had a great three hours it was only a three-hour derby though a little derp yeah but you think they would have
6:39
caught one yeah but anyways super surprising and alarming to hear about
6:45
this ice fishing derby up in the Elllet Lake area we have a fishing hunting camp as well as family living up there the
6:52
kids and myself have caught some of the most amazing fish in this area bass salmon steelhead trout pike etc wow this
7:00
area is always an amazing destination and never disappoints if you're willing to drive for five or six hours after
7:05
work on a Friday lol visit Elliot Lake/Eloma Ontario thumbs up come on now
7:12
emoji well you know what we've This first time we've ever heard of something like this in the skunking you know what
7:17
I mean it is a good area i thought you know how could you not catch a bass or bass perch a perch or something during
7:24
that but now I see bass salmon steel head trout pike etc etc and and not a
7:31
one of them would bite maybe Tight Line's got them all him and the family well that's a possibility pretty good eh
7:36
uh we were not trying to poo poo on Elliot Lake by the way that's kind of the way it came across it's we found it
7:43
surprising news piece that a wonderful lake like that uh that whole area is a
7:49
wonderful place anytime we fish up there we we crack them that's why we're so surprised i mean you know what I mean so
7:54
it was just an anomaly it was that weird that we had to talk about it i still can't believe it even though Even though
8:00
it was three hours almost 200 lines were poking down through that ice 200 of
8:06
those and and those damn fish avoided every single one of them smart fish holy
8:13
mackerel we did have some people who wrote in though i think they didn't like our coverage um and I think they had
8:18
fished the event too and they wanted to emphasize that it poured all day poured rain so that's they just wanted to say
8:24
that yeah well did they were they dis were they pissed off with us the way we uh they didn't Yeah they didn't like
8:29
that we highlighted it i think it was people in the event and maybe we made you know people look bad or something oh
8:36
it's not what our tent our intent was not at all to to be in that area of the
8:42
of the world in a great fishing area and just to have that happen it's an anomaly it's weird i'll make them feel better if
8:49
this had happened on uh Lake Skooog for example we wouldn't have even brought it
8:55
up that's right why because let's be honest about it compared to Elliot Lake
9:00
area you can't compare the two fisheries we were shocked that this would happen there we wouldn't be shocked if it
9:07
happened on a lake Skugog or anything like that right so that's why we brought it up yeah because it's such a
9:14
tremendous fishery that 183 lines all I got is this picture looking you know
9:20
under the from the the bottom of the lake looking up at that ice sheet with 183 lines with wiggling little worms on
9:28
the end or minnows and those damn fish are down there huddled down there laughing at them saying Look at that
9:33
look at that they're not Look at that no you didn't oh god yeah there's nothing against the air we That's in the Al
9:40
region and I think as most people know we we uh high-five the Elg region every
9:46
each and every year at multiple times because it's so good including the Elliot Lake including Sous Staint Marie
9:51
including all that uh that Loausan all that area around there you know sturgeon
9:56
you know all that stuff i'll tell you what they don't have up there don't need to worry about is grass carp
10:04
okay that's why you didn't catch any see they were there they don't have any grass carp up there to worry about we do
10:11
yeah we do that uh grass carp one of the four species of Asian carp by the way
10:17
it's brought to you by uh the Invasive Species Center in case you're wondering in case you didn't know uh because they
10:23
want us to continually remind everybody about this possibility the possibility
10:29
is that the grass carp uh which by the way although they haven't taken you know
10:35
hold in our waters there has been evidence uh to prove that they are here
10:41
there are some non-breeding fish here uh but they would like us to be a little
10:48
more vigilant and that is uh know what the character looks like yeah yeah so of
10:53
of the four species I'll ask Dean and Angelo this are grass carp the worst
11:00
threat going do you think i don't know but it's probably the one that's the
11:05
most threat right now because it's the one that's coming in right i know the silvers right those are silvers that I
11:11
think those are the ones that are jumping all the time and they were there was not that long ago that there was word that they were
11:18
getting close to getting in yeah well they're in Illinois like everywhere i know they have a really bad dams they're talking about that
11:26
one's more of a health issue because they could knock people out of the [ __ ] out of you that's unreal when you see
11:31
that but I'm just wondering of the four species i bet you grass carp probably
11:36
Well I don't know i mean I think silver carp probably be the same thing they'd probably be a herbivore and perhaps what
11:42
I do know is that the grass carp can consume up to 40% of its body weight every day in vegetation how' you know
11:50
that i'll tell you how because I went to their site and uh went to ascarp.ca
11:56
so you're going to go to their site next time and you're going to find out which is the most dangerous if there is such an animal as most dangerous too well
12:03
there's the silver carp yes uh the buffalo is the buffalo on there no the big head big head and there's another
12:09
one what's another one i don't know you brought it up wasn't me i thought you'd know well no see I knew I knew about the
12:15
40% that's why I brought it up mhm but I think it's the black carp isn't it yes
12:21
maybe something like that i don't know i'll tell you what we should all be going to the Asian carp shame on us
12:27
right now for not knowing the black carp black Dean knew so Dean knows a producer knows dean knows everything dean knows
12:33
we just have to make sure we Dean's in the boat with us every time we Come on now everything yeah he was smart he was
12:38
a very serious kid oh all his life he been serious
12:45
uh where am I uh carb.ca that's it that's all I need to say about that um
12:52
we're going to go there too and and brush up because you know obviously we know the one but we don't really know
12:57
the rest so yeah yeah that's it uh in the news Mr bowman that's it brought to
13:03
you by by the way uh J and B Cycle right you know JB Marine well I know that i
13:09
knew that i know that we got a big day what else you know about we got a big day coming up with them in a couple days here just a matter of correct but what
13:14
else do you know about them well they're the largest dealer of Princecraft Mercury dealer in all of Ontario maybe
13:20
the world maybe the world but I'm not gonna say that you can say that i'm not gonna go on that limb but I know for a
13:26
fact that in this beautiful province of Ontario that they are the largest Princecraftraft Mercury dealer and they
13:34
don't have just that they have other lines of boats they have all kinds of and sport items like ATVs etc etc etc
13:42
snowmobiles obviously being up in Timonss there's a lot of snow and suburbs a lot of snowmobiling in those
13:48
areas so they uh they they have you they have you covered if you want to play around a little bit j and B cycle or uh
13:55
if you want to go to the website it's JB no and very confusing it was very
14:01
confusing and I've always been confused about that you you get confused every now and then you know as a thespian you
14:08
know well that's just it right because I'm so preoccupied being a thespian that that I get confused a lot circa back in
14:14
the day when you weren't ap you've kind of changed over well some
14:21
recently little transformation happening in there jmble.com by the way the story study
14:29
conducted by Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences they looked at how
14:35
globasm a drug commonly prescribed for sleep and anxiety disorders affects
14:40
juvenile Atlantic salmon so over 1,000 active pharmaceutical substances have
14:47
been found in global waterways i don't know i mean how does this get in there
14:52
to begin with through the toilets i was really Yeah it does does the drug get
15:00
dropped into the toilet cuz people are getting wasted or you're peeing it out i think there I think it's both i think it's mostly that people are like
15:05
discarding them into the toilet that's what I would think but it also I I've heard other stories i don't know how true they are about that it comes out of
15:12
your pee as well the can't be kid that has to dilute it to a
15:17
point of where it's not going to be even effective on anything doesn't it according to the Swedes that's not the
15:23
case i'm going to start pissing in a jar and send it to them i'm going to see okay you tell me what my life is all about right here you should i might
15:29
might not like the answer you should anyways over a thousand active pharmaceutical substances have been
15:36
found in global waterways so it's not just a substance uh over a thousand active pharmaceutical substances
15:44
but we have heard this before i mean there's been all kind there was one study that showed that fish were being
15:50
affected by estrogen yep which got into the waterway they now they've they've uh
15:56
focused on Atlantic salmon in this study but obviously if it's in the water every
16:03
fish has is around it and and subject to it correct and every mammal every
16:09
everything that lives in the water would be subject to this so they're just using Atlantic salmon maybe um I think we need
16:15
to get into the study business i'm enamored by these studies are you well yeah cuz I
16:23
see I see a business there right i'm looking at it i say you know like do we
16:29
really need all these studies no the answer is no but there's somebody who creates a reason for it and it's a
16:38
business and therefore next thing you know we need to raise funds and we need to you know so what are your credentials
16:46
for let's say something like this aside from being a thespian if you're well I
16:53
distinctly remember uh grade six or grade seven here we go I
17:00
won um what yeah I think it's grade
17:05
spelling bee well no i was bad at spelling bees oh man i used to I ducked underneath the uh the desk when they
17:13
were a teacher was looking at me no um I won the uh in biology i think it was
17:19
biology i wasn't called biology back then but I won uh you know where you take a frog and you split it open and
17:27
you have to pin all of the skin i didn't do that you didn't do that Dean did you
17:32
do that not in school yeah we did that did a worm too you went to reform school i don't think it was a part of the
17:37
curriculum because what we did there is we sewed those frogs back up and tried to release them in the wild you felt bad
17:43
for them right yeah i won that whole thing with the pins presentation and we were looking at
17:50
ovaries and stuff i don't know but uh yeah so I qualified to do studies like that for sure i It'd be a blast i love
17:58
it did we pretty much butcher up your story yeah cuz the uh the punch line there was that it the drugs are actually
18:04
helping them so that's why I knew that that's why I'm making light that's why do the study cuz Andrew's going to do
18:09
the drugs as well okay this is good [ __ ] every salmon you're good that's right we're all right now anyways a wonderful
18:16
story uh that Mr taylor has put his heart and soul into and we're totally
18:22
destroying it so go to fishingcanada.com the gateway the portal
18:27
what good fish what good is it doing to the salmon let's go one more let's take this one more step what good is it doing
18:32
to the salmon do you know you want to know you don't want to make moving on to fan question of the week you want you
18:38
want to linger there a little bit longer well it's we haven't done enough damage to that now you want to linger a little
18:43
bit like you were not you were not fishingcanada.com then I'll I'll I'll talk to Dean afterwards then I'll find
18:49
out fan question of the week brought to you by fishfindermounts.com that's fishfindermounts.com the folks who make
18:56
all those wonderful apparatuses that you see on the Fishing Canada boat every week yes uh where we hang all of our
19:03
transducers and and electronic devices and whatnot um go check them out their
19:10
website by the way in case you didn't know is uh fishfindermounts.com come on now it coincides with the name
19:17
of the company hey that's clever well you know kill two birds with one stone fishfinder.com
19:24
uh this one is submitted now is it this qualifying for anything Dave this is qualifying for the award all right uh it
19:31
comes to us from Hurley Lock the award 6460 via YouTube so yeah via YouTube so
19:39
he had to subscri Happy subscriber yeah he is he's very happy wonderful wonderful and if you're listening to
19:45
this and you're not a subscriber make us happy just push that subscribe button wherever you see it there it like it's
19:52
painless i'm told and it helps us if you want to help us immensely immensely and
19:57
then some uh so we have to now determine whether um this person uh Hurley Hurley
20:04
lock he's a he's a has won cuz Bowman and I have the final say on this i like
20:10
the 6460 already i just like that reminds me of Van Halen 5150 so I if he
20:16
wins Dean what he has to take a picture uh and send it to us or something yeah he needs to get a hold of us prove his
20:23
identity and then we'll we'll give him uh some money gotcha uh he says "Hey guys just wanted to say first of all
20:30
love the show uh of course but these YouTube uh podcasts are also fantastic
20:36
not sure if it's possible or maybe too late of course with planning and tourism and partner support uh but would it be
20:44
possible to shoot this is interesting would it be possible to shoot a show in
20:50
every province and territory of Canada for the 40th season for the 13 shows 13
20:58
locations 13 shows uh would that not be the ultimate 40th man would it ever
21:04
either way I'll watch everything you put out lol nice thank you very much thank
21:10
you uh um Hurley Harleyley Hurley and you know it would be the ultimate and we
21:16
of course we you're not alone Hurley because we thought about that we have definitely thought about that for this
21:22
40th year we thought that would be the ultimate however logistics would not see
21:27
here's the problem there are 13 weeks 14 if you're kind of stretching it uh for
21:32
us to gather all of the content that goes into the series right there's 14 if
21:40
you kind of do the the number from from sometime weather permitting sometime Mayish end of May early June to
21:46
September to October there's a a 14week period for us to travel from coast to
21:52
coast and do our job there's just not enough weeks so 13
21:58
would be impossible and that's why a lot of times you'll see us doing um a couple
22:05
of episodes from a particular region because we're taking advantage of the
22:10
travel aspect that's already in place last year New Brunswick to Nova Scotia exactly exactly so so although it would
22:18
be wonderful I just it would be wonderful it would be
22:23
perfect but the other problem we have here Hurley is that we uh our one of our biggest No our biggest sponsor is
22:30
Ontario Tourism and we're committed to five shows from them alone so that right there knocks the number down right for
22:37
other provinces so and we we run 13 shows in that cycle so yeah you could
22:42
run more but that would be you'd have to add five in there or four more in there so it'd be uh it'd be a chore that's for
22:48
sure and and to be honest with you we reach out to a lot of tourism departments and they say "No thank you
22:56
we don't want you." For whatever reason they are not going to deny us crying from our people's part that we we reach
23:03
out to everybody at the beginning each year and um you know some some place and
23:09
it's funny it's very cyclical uh you'll get some periods i remember when we
23:15
first started in this business uh Manitoba was on fire they were marketing
23:21
yeah baby they were marketing and advertising everywhere they were they were telling the world "Hey we are in
23:28
the fishing business come to Manitoba Canada." And and it was just a wonderful
23:34
campaign for about four or five years they Yeah bought they were it man that was the deal they bought it all and then
23:41
they just went dormant mhm and are still dormant to this day yeah in television
23:46
there they put a YouTuber uh you know emphasis on YouTube but they don't do it on the television as much at least that
23:52
we can figure out anyways so it's odd anyways we do the best that we can with what God gave us basically good good uh
24:00
way to end that yeah absolutely look at you go all righty now why did you do
24:05
that i I wanted the total silence before I jumped in uh main segment of the show
24:10
coming up brought to you by sale we're going to rename the segment by the way uh for those of you who are tired of
24:16
hearing the main segment of the show hey our listeners maybe give us some feedback wonderful idea come on now did
24:22
you just come up with that but like right there in the heed right in the heed my friend wow i love it there you
24:27
go so if you've got a name for us uh for the main segment of the show our special guest each episode uh please mail it
24:35
into us you don't like main segment eh you just don't like that it's not me you know me i don't do that kind of stuff right but we'll give you
24:41
something nice so whoever gets chosen a nice little I don't know what yet but we'll dig something up wow maybe Sale
24:48
could give him a gift or two well speaking of which this segment is brought to you by Sale the outdoor superstore sale is home
24:56
for all things outdoors especially fishing hunting and such things uh tackle clothing footwear so much more if
25:04
you haven't visited a sale store please do so and uh get familiar with that
25:09
environment because just walking into a sales store even if you're not buying anything it is so nice it's you won't
25:17
walk out without buying something trust me I can't uh if you don't have one in your area which we are fortunate to have
25:22
here uh just head on over to the old internet and go to sale.ca s a
25:29
l.ca and uh shop the internet at your computer you don't even hear that anymore do you it's always online it's
25:35
always going online going go online somebody calls it the interweb i love it one of the TV guys
25:43
that's probably a Trump thing he probably calls it that dumbass uh they even have sales going on right now up to
25:49
60% off on select items so that's all happening at Sale S A I L and now
25:58
uh the special feature her name is Melanie Villu she is general manager of
26:03
Hurst Air melanie welcome to the program how are you hey pretty good guys thanks
26:08
for having me oh our pleasure our pleasure did we have you not been on the show before no no we talked about it but
26:15
uh never have she's been They've been featured on the Fishing Canada show at least few times two or three times at
26:22
least I would say but uh never on the podcast yeah yeah we did two one one Kim
26:29
Island man oh man i know that it's it's not open or opening up again we'll talk about that in a minute but man what an
26:34
experience that was um Harry Baxter harry Baxter he's no longer with us i
26:40
understand he was a legend um but we've done other trips with you as well we wanted to get you on the program today
26:47
because you are first of all relatively unique in that you are a woman who is
26:54
running a fishing flying operation which I don't
27:00
know off top of my head if I know anybody else in this country that that is Betty McGee would have did that kind
27:07
of in a way right betty was Yeah yeah you're right yeah she she's not many she
27:12
could be the new Betty Betty Jr betty Jun betty Jr um I don't know about that
27:18
um Marg Marg Watson was uh known to be quite a legend she was also a pilot
27:24
which I am not but yeah she did a really good job for a long time and she was in
27:30
aviation yeah so I I wanted to talk to you about that that experience because you also live there at the air base so
27:37
you're there like 12 months a year is that home yes yeah it is wow yeah I'm
27:43
always here good for you uh winter is not that bad uh it's kind of nice and calm there's a new energy to the lake
27:50
you know everything's frozen and um there's still some work to do but I've finally
27:56
after 25 years learned to take advantage of the winter time and travel a little bit but this is home all the time how
28:04
far is Hurst Ontario for our listeners Hurst from Toronto let's say uh about 10
28:09
11 hour drive okay she's a full day yeah it's a full day to get back but not a long day it's a full day no right it's
28:16
not some of those horrendous drives that we do 14 15 normally on a on a trip like
28:21
with Melis Place Hurst Air you you drive up to the town of Hurst and you stay overnight at a at a motel or hotel or
28:29
something like that and then go to their air base the next morning that's the way they use and then you fly into your
28:34
destination of choice after that so how many uh how many planes do you do you
28:39
operate we have two we have a turbo beaver and a piston beaver the regular
28:45
beaver you used to have an otter didn't you didn't you have turbo yes we had a turbo otter we've had a caravan as well
28:51
right wow um those years were really busy that wasn't just tourism we were very busy with mining exploration as
28:58
well and we were flying flying year round that was 365 days a year so when
29:04
all the exploration stopped we kind of had to rightsize and and go for just
29:09
what uh what we knew was going really well which is tourism the flying fishing has never stopped so right so now we're
29:16
equipped for that uh with with the uh perspectus on on the whole ring of fire
29:22
and whatnot will that kind of re-energize that part of the business you think uh oh you're touching a soft
29:31
uh I know I know subject so we were very busy with that and I think in those days
29:36
there was a lot of exploration a lot of hope um I won't go into my opinion on
29:42
why that stopped um it's great to hear politicians once
29:49
again say that things are going to get started and I sure hope it does for somebody else
29:55
um because there's there's a lot of great things that can happen from it absolutely uh but until someone drops a
30:02
thousand drums in our yard to haul I I God I won't hold my breath i can't even
30:07
imagine that a thousand drums of your insane okay is that a realistic number
30:14
by the way when you were when you used to go really really yeah well we were we were doing logistics for about four
30:20
camps uh year round so like let's say one exploration camp has a crew of
30:26
drillers that they run 24 hours a day so that's two crews the helicopters and
30:31
then a cook and the staff the geologists um and that was just one camp so we had
30:38
all of the inventory going in and out for that groceries all the parts everything they needed we supplied to
30:45
them holy crap and we did that for about four of them year round for a good 12 years wow that's a great business man
30:52
you you were you were literally brought up on an air base am I assuming that's
30:58
right you you you like you were a kid running around i was a year old yeah
31:04
what a great experience what an unbelievable experience why did you never get your pilot's license
31:09
you know what i I started in Oh gosh I was about 22 maybe um a while back and I
31:19
think I maybe took it for granted it wasn't really a passion of mine to fly
31:25
um and it you know with the expense of it all I thought well if I have money and time I want to travel i don't want
31:30
to start flying so I should have done it just to at least have my private but I
31:36
didn't um I never did and I I don't actually get in the planes a lot you
31:42
would think because they're here i'm always there but my job is to make sure that they're going in the right places
31:47
and they're full and uh they're doing their job and I'm dispatching and you know following them so so yeah I mean
31:55
I'm I'm glad I'm around them and have the opportunity to to go in if I can but
32:01
I never did start flying wow your brother is a licensed pilot correct yes
32:07
yeah he started flying he was I want to say 17 18 he got his commercial license
32:14
pretty young so uh yeah he flew here his whole career he also flew helicopters
32:20
and now he's he's actually a captain uh he's flying in Quebec in northern Quebec
32:26
and he just flew his 20,000th hour oh my gosh yeah which is kind of unheard of
32:32
but he's doing really well and um he you know he's he's born a pilot but there's
32:38
he loves it so you was he flying people into camps at the age of 17
32:45
uh he well when he first started it was just cargo really okay um I was going to say it's got to be it's got to be a
32:52
little unnerving you know can you imagine a little a kid jumping on the Okay you guys ready to go first he's
32:58
pulling all your [ __ ] in the plane and you're thinking "Okay this kid's good he's busy as hell." Okay put the headphones on get in boys we're going
33:06
what yeah yeah no he didn't have his commercial license at 17 but that's when he started right right we've had some
33:12
pretty young pilots we have had some young ones yeah yeah the one guy was Where were we in Nikina nikina Air there
33:18
was one young lad there that one time we got up there and we thought "What the hell this guy can't be flying us in." It was a It was a weird feeling and he was
33:26
good he was really good i don't remember i remember it was in BC um and it was a
33:32
a unusually long flight you know normally they're 45 minutes half an hour
33:37
an hour an hour and a half but this was like a long beaver flight and he was I
33:45
thought he was like maybe 18 or 19 years old and so I kind of started having some
33:51
questions right but I was okay obviously somebody put him in that seat and I have to try
33:57
and then he started talking about Yeah about uh the last time he crashed so I'm
34:04
thinking "Holy [ __ ] like you're you're barely you're a pup and you've already had crashes." And he was talking about
34:11
this time this plane went down like somebody I said "Somebody should talk to this kid do not get into that
34:17
conversation when you have a boat or plane full of bodies with you go." But
34:22
anyways um it's a fascinating business i've always loved it i always thought
34:28
man what a But you know we've heard this a million times about us you know but I
34:34
look at you and I say what a wonderful life that is just absolutely outstanding
34:39
you know you're there every day you wake up with this stuff you can hop on a plane and go into a back lake and get in
34:47
a boat like just the the dream life right you live it but we get we get told
34:52
the same thing about us but we know that that that beautiful picture that I just painted unfortunately doesn't happen
34:59
often enough most of the time it's work the dream is there but that everything else is there too right so
35:06
yes my son my son is a good reminder to take that time cuz he's he absolutely
35:11
loves to fish and hunt and be in the outdoors so he keeps telling me "Okay when are we going to go fishing?" And
35:17
unfortunately it took u a very long time before I did a fly in with him wow but
35:22
again I think it's just cuz it's always accessible and you know at the end of the day the pilots already have their
35:28
day done i don't want to say "Hey can we go here or there?" Yeah that's true yeah
35:33
that's crazy man that's why you need your pilot's license right there you and the son get in there and drop into a
35:39
little puddle up there somewhere and crack walleye all day that'd be perfect well that's his plan so he's once he
35:45
flies you can we can go fishing that's it right there good goal so um let's
35:51
talk a little bit about the product obviously uh you've got a variety of different flyins there is no just for
35:57
people listening to this or watching this there is no actual lodge um Mel
36:03
runs an operation with uh how many how many locations you have uh we have seven
36:09
outposts and two river trips so seven outposts and two river trips
36:16
river trip is the world famous Sutton River uh which we were fortunate enough
36:22
a few years ago before you got busy that we went in on on that trip and my god it
36:28
was absolutely breathtaking but so what happens is you go to uh Mel's operation
36:34
obviously you book in advance but you drive to a 10-hour drive from the GTA and um you load the plane up and they
36:42
take you into this incredible little piece of wilderness that's all yours for
36:48
the three five seven days that you have booked and they drop you off unload the
36:54
plane and say "See you later." Yeah you bring your food you bring everything you need like that pillows or sleeping bags
37:00
if you want to bring all that kind of stuff beer everybody's got to bring their beer in but uh yeah like an say
37:05
it's basically like going to the cottage with no other cottages anywhere near around you you know what I mean flying into a cottage yeah yeah it's kind of
37:12
different like that and it's a and it's a great environment you just you're you're on your own schedule that's the
37:18
nice part about the outpost cabins is that you are totally on your own schedule if you guys want to do supper
37:23
at 7:00 after you know after a day of fishing or early and then go out fishing in the even it doesn't matter just
37:28
whatever you guys want to do somebody wants to do one one guy is the other do do with that too so have you got
37:35
different levels of of quality in these camps like do you have a a a first class experience a mid-range and then a budget
37:43
experience like how would people determine where to go uh well I would like to think that
37:49
they're all first class there you go there you go perfect good answer no they're they're very we kept we've kept
37:57
everything very basic everything is very uh rustic basic um we find that our
38:05
clientele really appreciates going in and and and really having the
38:10
opportunity to taking take care of themselves the other thing we ran into is if if we start looking at providing
38:19
more in the camp you really have to make sure that it really works so if I say "Oh there's going to be um a shower and
38:27
electricity and uh I don't know what else that people would would start wanting to to have but that takes more
38:35
maintenance and that means more staff and more flying to maintain those so
38:41
then the cost of your trip really goes up the the more often you got to fly in
38:47
there to service everything the more the cost for the fisherman is going to go up
38:52
so uh you know we've got we've had longtimers we've had new guys and I'll often ask them you know what would you
39:00
see having at the camp and some obviously a lot of people would
39:06
appreciate a shower or or a toilet or this and that but they also appreciate not having to pay a lot more uh which
39:16
you know there are outfitters that have decided to go that way and that's great some people can afford that um but you
39:24
know we've kept we've kept the camps in a position where we're able to provide
39:30
quality fishing to everyone not just the guy who can pay the extra yeah that's
39:35
good you know it's it's affordable to everybody yeah let's let everybody know what Mel was talking about there so it's
39:42
not like you can't wash yourself you can go in the lake bring a bar of soap and
39:47
you can jump in the lake and clean yourself you know what I mean you're not you know and then there's also you
39:53
can't hold your [ __ ] in for 10 days they have an outhouse there too so you got you got to remember there's some basics
39:59
there but that's part of that's all part of the game so but a lot of times you see you know guys won't go in there and
40:05
they won't even jump in the lake cuz the lake might be a bit cool or something so ah I'll stink for 5 days and go home
40:10
sort of thing like that but but you bring a bar of soap you can just jump in find the sandb bar and Quants Lake they had a sandb bar there's we went over
40:15
there and had a riot out there so a little swim in there so yeah it's it's not for everybody and I and I think you
40:22
probably when folks contact you or you're at the various trade shows
40:27
consumer shows and talking to them I'm sure that you you tell them what it is that they're getting into right because
40:34
I think a lot of people might not know they just think "Oh great it's only you
40:39
know x number of dollars wow great price let me book it." And then six months eight months later they drive up to
40:45
Hurst and and all of a sudden they find out oh
40:50
really right so I'm sure you have to do a good job at really detailing that this
40:56
is truly a wilderness experience this is this is the place where where somebody
41:03
that's listening to this program that's never been in the outback and has always fantasized about you know living off the
41:10
land uh this is the type of trip where you can really push yourself to the
41:15
limit to see exactly how far you can take it right because you you can
41:20
isolate yourself from the rest of the planet for three five seven days um
41:26
maybe more i don't know whether you offer longer trips or not but you are truly disconnected
41:33
from the rest of the world and when you come out from an experience like that
41:38
you know first of all what you think of is survival man I did it I actually did it you know a lot of people come back
41:44
and it changes their life because they had doubts that they could ever survive
41:50
something like that because we're listen we're so spoiled it you know we don't even realize how spoiled we are as
41:56
humans are hardly ever so it takes a trip into one of these outback lakes to really really see that and and it's
42:04
great i think it's fantastic as long as people know what they're getting into because you also have a lot of green
42:10
horns that would go into a place like that and uh boy it would be I can see complications arising pretty quick oh
42:17
yeah it'd be nice to have at least one go ahead M i think that's one of my my biggest challenges is I I'm having a
42:24
hard time giving the booking process to my website and getting online fully just
42:31
exactly for that reason so if someone goes on the site and then they say "Okay this looks interesting i'm going to go
42:37
from this date to this date and then they book and I don't get to speak to them." I'm afraid that they're not going
42:45
to be finding the experience that they want whereas if I'm on the phone because I'm the one answering every day and
42:52
answering emails then I can get a feel of what their experience is already and
42:57
what what they're expecting and making sure that they're put in a position where they're going to want to come
43:02
again um this happened just yesterday actually someone talked about the Sutton River
43:07
and and going up with with a young child and he said "Well is the river you know
43:14
slow enough that if I had to I could paddle on my own?" I thought "Well if you're already thinking of doing a 10
43:21
10day paddle on your own because you have a child in your canoe this is not the place you want to go." So you need
43:27
to discourage that kind of stuff too so yeah it it's it's very demanding
43:32
obviously because it's a lot of conversations and it's a lot of phone calls but um I think it is important
43:38
like you said to prepare them and to make sure that they're going to get the best experience out of this and like you
43:45
said you've got folks who've been coming there for years who are you know we'll call them seasoned veterans and they
43:51
love it they look forward to that opportunity so it it kind of checks off boxes for both types of people people
43:59
who want that first time experience of true wilderness survival and people who do it on a regular basis they just can't
44:05
wait to get back into it you mentioned something earlier on about you know the the fewer amenities the less maintenance
44:11
involved and and less you know costs in terms of that and I thought about that
44:18
man that's that's bang on because in our experiences with um any of the flyins
44:24
not just yours but any of the outback flyins there really isn't the only thing that can go wrong is nature right mother
44:33
nature that can be a bit of a bummer if you fly into one of these places for
44:39
whatever that length of time is and nature decides to piss on you for days
44:45
like that is a real bummer that would be a bummer even then you can take the opportunity to embrace it and we'd still
44:51
go fishing oh we would go fishing we wouldn't wouldn't matter so I'm sure all the boys would be cards yeah it' be a lot of card time the other thing um in
44:58
these camps most of these camps anyways and I believe meals are the same way they have they have a stove in there and
45:03
they have a fridge in there as a rule right Mel and they're on pro they run on propane correct yes yeah so you're thinking you're going in with none of
45:09
that you got to remember that's there so you can cook on the stove or you can build a fire out out in front and do that but but cooking on the stove is one
45:16
of the main things for your breakfast and cook and heating your coffee up and stuff like that and the fridge you can keep all your food stays well in the
45:22
fridge and these things work great these propane fridges and stoves work great so would it be out of the question to Yes
45:29
to fly in no you're you're talking about porcelain and I'm not even going to go there no I'm not i'm not but but to me
45:37
you can go there i know i know by the way Mel was great last time we worked with her she knows my uh little phobia
45:44
uh so they had a nice little uh Angelo signature bucket with a toilet seat on
45:50
it the Angeloo yes bring me the bucket i'm going for a poop that was fantastic i
45:57
thank you for that that was good a generator a little portable generator could that not be put on the plane and
46:03
then brought back out on the plane i mean that Yeah a lot of people do bring them a lot of people Yeah they bring uh
46:09
small generators especially for CPAPs they bring their own okay the problem with that of course is fuel right they
46:16
have to bring Yeah i mean they don't they don't take a lot uh a lot of people bring them for CPAPs right we do at
46:23
night um there are some really really nice solar kits now where one small little
46:30
folding panel and a string of lights that kind of thing um wow that sets up
46:36
really easily in the camp uh a lot of these guys are are already they already
46:41
have cottages they're they're hunters they're fishermen they've got ATVs they're used to being in um in the
46:47
forest and camping so they come really well equipped uh with that kind of stuff again if if we we can provide a
46:54
generator if you rent it okay we have some so we make sure that it's there and ready uh the only thing with that I find
47:01
is as soon as you set up a generator now they want to plug in uh uh their phones
47:09
and a speaker and uh boom box and this and that and now they're not fishing
47:14
they're not out by the campfire and they're not if that's really what you want then that's this is not the place for you so for us that's not the case we
47:22
need a generator you would think it would be for some of those No you would think it'd be for cameras that's what I was going to say charging our our
47:28
cameras is not we need a generator because one of our members has a a real
47:34
issue at night when he closes his eyes and goes to sleep he turns into a bear a
47:39
grizzly bear and a funny story about the last time we were up one of your kids
47:44
yeah funny to everybody else not so much to us oh my god anyway so we had the generator as you know and everything was
47:51
cool you know cuz there was no way in hell we would have got in there without a generator uh so that he could plug his
47:56
Darth Vader mask on um and it was fine first day it was good first night it was
48:02
fine and then something happened what was Oh it ran out of gas in the middle of the night it the generator ran out of
48:09
gas and oh my god those little cabins are very
48:14
quaint most of the time but when you hear the howl of a grizzly bear in the
48:20
middle of a small little cabin like that with six guys and let me tell you
48:25
something northern Ontario is very dark at night it's like the darkest of dark
48:30
that you will be in yeah oh god oh that was scary oh my god he rolled he was in
48:36
Stevie was in the middle of the three bedrooms and he had everybody in the whole place we we woke up in shock we
48:42
said "What the hell is going on?" You know cuz you're getting a nice sleep and the generator sound in the background is
48:48
beautiful and everything's just going so nice and then silence and the bear jumps in there oh my god he shocked the hell
48:54
out of us that one sorry guys I'll go put some gas in that then he went to gas
48:59
it up and he put his bug net on or something had and his zipper was undone and the mosquitoes annihilated him oh
49:05
god it was great yeah you guys had you guys had the uh the true test of the
49:10
north in one week yeah bug week yeah we had those giant horse flies horse flies
49:17
like I don't want to laugh but a gazillion of them you know when we got up there you we may have told you this
49:24
but I forget pretty much everything I say to anybody anyway so I'll repeat my So when we first got up there Mel and we
49:32
unloaded everything and got things set and we noticed there was some bugs you know it was wasn't a big deal we were
49:38
used to that stuff and then we started we carried stuff down to the boats that were at the at the dock and the first
49:45
thing we noticed was inside the boats you know how a prisoner will mark one
49:51
one and then cross for 5 days so he knows how many days right well inside the boats they had a series of these
49:59
little one one slash one11 and we thought "Oh man the fishing look how good the fishing is up here 30in plus
50:05
these are all walley." The guys to keep count just to see how many they were
50:10
catching a day every day they must have you know done this and we thought "Wow this is great i can't wait to get out
50:16
there." And of course now we're swatting bugs and they're starting to annihilate us and it wasn't until later on that day
50:21
that we figured out what those were those were kills those were bug kills that the guys that were in there before
50:27
us marked down they wanted to see just how many do I have to kill it was crazy
50:34
we hit her bad that one week of bad for sure oh god how often does that happen Mel or or what there there are those are
50:42
um peak times they're hatches wow wow and you were you were right in it plus
50:49
the heat if I remember correctly you guys had extreme heat the forest fires
50:55
so you had the smoke but we were lucky to have a dragonfly hatch going on too at that time and the dragon flies kept
51:01
us sane around our camp they were just they were eating the horse flies it was like it was insane it was it was neat to
51:07
see actually but but you know that in itself is an experience right that we turn that into a positive because to see
51:14
how nature works like that was just absolutely amazing because the sky would be just
51:21
filled with these flies and then all of a sudden a couple times a day a a
51:28
squadron swarm of these big giant dragon flies would come into camp and it was so
51:34
cool to watch and those are the experiences yeah those are the experiences that only a place like yours
51:40
can can give people because you'd never catch that anywhere else guaranteed but
51:45
yeah that moment even though you know the flies were a big issue a big problem
51:50
but when that happened the flotillaa of these giant dragonflies would come in and start munching on them it was so it
51:56
was magic and you could and we noticed you would not notice the bugs around you anymore when they came in man those bugs
52:03
took the hell off they did not like those guys hanging around and they're so efficient feeders too we watch you can
52:08
literally watch them catch them in the air it was like so cool it was great and then we had the forest fires Mel at that time remember um Yeah how did that ever
52:15
turn out cuz we were just leaving as as I I think the fires were starting to get a little closer to Quants uh did did did
52:23
it stop there yes we were very fortunate through those two two years of forest fires none of
52:30
the camps got uh touched um it was really the only issue was smoke obviously right that last day we were
52:37
there yeah yeah the terrain here is is very very flat but also very wet um and
52:44
anything I'd say 70 mi north of us is past the tree line so there are forest
52:50
fires but they don't last there's nothing to feed on there's nothing to for them to to get going on so we we
52:57
were really lucky with that south of us they got hit west obviously and in Quebec so that was sad we we got lucky
53:04
how's it shaping up for this year um good obviously you got a lot of snow
53:09
during the winter like we the rest of the seems like the rest of the country yeah there's there's lots of snow um I
53:16
wouldn't say that we're at a norm it's still a little bit below normal it was definitely more than last year though
53:22
which is really good because the lakes and rivers were very very low um it's hard on the pontoons so that's what's
53:29
happening right now a lot of maintenance on the on the airplanes on the floats um
53:35
that meant that there were some docks that we couldn't get to you know sometimes you can't get right to
53:40
shoreline when you're dropping people off the camps have docks but when you're dropping people off on um a lake where
53:46
there's no dock or rivers then you can't get to shore right and there were some
53:51
moose hunts that we weren't able to do too because there's just not enough water to land so we're looking forward
53:57
to a lot more water this year which will be good yeah and and that should bode well for the forest fire issues as well
54:04
i'm thinking if if we should yes hopefully yeah mel but no
54:09
the the bookings are good good you and I Mel and I had a chat and an I never got
54:15
to talk to you about this yet but do you want to talk about the Ottawa uh river trip of course okay tell
54:21
because this sounds like this is right up our alley this is cool tell everybody what you're going to offer here all
54:28
right so everybody knows about the Adawapiscat it's it's kind of have has
54:34
made a reputation for itself which you have witnessed um unfortunately we did
54:39
uh kind of slow down on the camp that we were using at Pim Island for a few years
54:45
but we really want to start fishing the the river again so the Sutton River is
54:50
another really popular one for us and I mean I could book that three or four years in advance it's it's the type of
54:57
trip that you know even if again we're not offering you know quality um
55:02
accommodations and and fancy chefs and that kind of thing it's it's the fishery
55:07
that people want to go to and that's what I want to really emphasize on the Adawapascat so we want to do a river
55:13
trip a custom river trip on the Adawapascat uh and provide uh the vessels like the
55:20
boats we have two different types of boats people could use and then they'll be drifting the river for approximately
55:27
40 45 miles we'll drop off at Pim and pick them up a little bit further north
55:33
so hopefully get people back in and fishing and having a a very very unique
55:38
experience and that'll be multiple day trip right so you're going to have little areas where they can camp at
55:44
night where they they stop off and camp at night and you've got a That's right the girl you were telling me about
55:49
that's going to be working with you possibly she sounds excellent at that yeah we have a young girl here Milen
55:57
Graton Kulom she um she's only I want to say 24 i'm hoping I'm getting that right
56:03
she's only about 23 or 24 years old but since she was 14 or 15 she's been coming
56:09
around and uh guiding and and snowmmoiling and fishing and hunting she's a moose hunter as well with her
56:15
father and now she's giving services and she's an outfitter herself so I've
56:21
brought her to the shows with me and we're looking at doing this river trip with her as well so if someone does want
56:28
a guide then she could go in before the the guests then as you're drifting down
56:34
the river she could go up and set up camp so once you get to that campsite fire's going already she's getting the
56:41
meals ready and you can really concentrate just on the fishing so there'll be a way to do it as a DIY and
56:48
there'll be a way to do it as a guided trip as well that's cool doesn't that sound great wow we fish that river and I
56:56
got to tell you it fishes very well extremely well you're going to do Once
57:01
you open When are you opening that up that that opportunity well we're hoping to start that this year okay um we're
57:06
going to go in and set up a few a few sites that are a little easier to to settle into but we're thinking the trip
57:13
will take a week um and yeah um we'll start in June this
57:20
year and maybe a few weeks of of fall fishing cuz the pike get really nice and
57:25
aggressive that'd be a great fall trip oh god how cool would that be for folks uh who who are into pike fishing um and
57:32
walleye there's good walleye yes yeah but you know I if I was selling it to
57:39
somebody if I was you know trying to promote market this to somebody I would say the walleye are great because you
57:45
can have shore lunch you can have them for dinner breakfast whatever cuz every time you put a line in the water you're
57:51
going to get a walleye if you're walleye fishing but it's still to this day
57:57
all things considered probably one of the best northern pike fishing that we've had in
58:04
Ontario in Ontario for sure but they're not just big fish they're not just angry
58:11
gnarly aggressive pike but the environment that they live in makes them even Yeah that
58:19
river is so seem more insane every one of them and it's a nice slow meandering
58:24
river for the most part right it's not like this raging there are rapid areas harry took us to that one spot there for
58:30
walley one time but but for the most part it's just a nice meandering river that you can stop the boat and cast cast
58:37
and yeah perfect for pike for sure you know what I mean so top water remember the top water pike i remember here's one
58:43
of the best memories I got out of that out of our Hurst Pim Island Hurst trip was we we went into one of the bays Mel
58:50
not too far from your camp Back Bay and An and I were in the boat we were shooting and Ed pulled out those water
58:56
wolf about an 8 or 10 inch giant tube and and he says I wonder I wonder and I
59:01
look at him I says oh my god you are nuts mister and he took this bomb of a cast and I'll remember this forever it
59:07
was all calm like that and when that thing hit the boom it hit the water and splashed like a freaking rock and I
59:14
thought "Good you just scared every fish in the freaking lake away." And all of a sudden two seconds later his tube was going sideways boom and he cracks up
59:21
with a 40in pike on the first cast and then it was just pike after pike it was almost like this bait was calling them
59:28
right that's what I mean these fish are insane those pike in that river for whatever reason they are totally
59:35
oblivious to You know people think that when you go into the wilderness uh and
59:41
and go fishing for fish that aren't usually fish for you know if you the
59:48
only person in that week or every couple of weeks into that but you think that those fish they call them stupid because
59:54
they're not exposed to humans but actually those fish are a lot more in
59:59
tune with their environment so any little sound anything that's not normal they key in on it and in most places it
1:00:06
makes it tough as anglers but I got to tell you and that's why I say those fish there are insane because when we went to
1:00:14
py I swear that every time we made more noise like the case that Pete just
1:00:20
mentioned you know throwing a 5B chunk of rubber into the bay they ran for it
1:00:26
they came to you the wakes the wakes look like gators
1:00:32
they're very aggressive and the walleye are like that too the the guys were hitting walleye on on top water lures i
1:00:39
know yeah see that's rare y which is unheard of wow yeah yeah how do you how
1:00:46
do you deal with the safety aspect of a trip like that though i mean it's one thing flying people into a camp and they
1:00:53
go out on their their day trips with with you know tin boats and stuff yeah
1:00:58
but to drop them off you know at the headwater and then have them float down and pick them up down at the end how do
1:01:04
you deal with that from a safety aspect or is there a concern for that
1:01:11
as far as I'm concerned I I think it's the same thing as when I get a call for you know paddlers that just want
1:01:17
transportation we're kind of a water taxi as well or air taxi if you want um
1:01:23
people that choose to do something like this are coming in with experience and that also goes in with the conversation
1:01:29
that I have um the the paperwork that I prepared for that also mentions like you
1:01:36
need to come in with experience and really remind people that if something should happen we're not just 20 minutes
1:01:43
away so we we saw that with Pim Island too even with guided trips a lot of guys
1:01:49
would say "Oh I don't need a guide i know how to fish a river and I've done this and that well it it's not that kind
1:01:56
of place you you do have to know what you're doing um I think the other thing
1:02:02
that I feel good about is I I'm really trying to sell this as a drift trip
1:02:08
right i don't want them boating i want them fishing so the idea is not to go
1:02:15
fast because you're going to go by you know they should be hitting every single weed bed every single outcrop that's
1:02:22
what they're supposed to be doing in those seven days so they're drifting and fishing whereas if you put them in a
1:02:29
boat with a 15 horsepower motor and going through rapids that kind of thing I think that would be a little more
1:02:36
dangerous yeah yeah for sure but that's that's the intention is to really you
1:02:41
know find those guys who have done trips already and it's it's kind of a
1:02:47
do-it-yourself do they bring Do a lot of them bring satones with them or Garmin in reaches or anything like that they do
1:02:53
yeah it's a good idea to do that they have the in reach i've I've actually gotten rid of all my satones they're
1:02:59
very very expensive not going to be a a good spokesperson for a satellite phone
1:03:04
but the in reach is good and I've got these Zolios now that pairs with the cell phones they're very very good it's
1:03:11
kind of a little satellite device and then you can text back and forth with the Zolio or with your cell so those are
1:03:18
a lot better do you still have those big wonderful canoes at Py then that you're
1:03:23
going to use for this or or how are you going to deal with that no so there are Well the idea is to get the family back
1:03:29
into Py Island they want to uh work on the camp and spend some time there work
1:03:34
on the properties um once they are all settled in and and ready to go then they
1:03:40
could offer some guiding services as well but we just want to take our time in in getting that going again nice uh
1:03:47
so the freighters the freighter canoes will be at the camp with them what we're
1:03:52
going to offer for this trip is there's two different things we've got a 14 foot porta boat which is actually a foldable
1:04:00
boat um which we feel is going to be a good option there's a nice anchoring system
1:04:06
at the front end uh you're able to bring a small engine maybe up to six
1:04:12
horsepower on it we will supply the gas for that and the other one is u it's a
1:04:18
company out of uh North Carolina i believe it's called a green fin it's an inflatable boat it's
1:04:26
got a nice solid bottle on it um they do say it's for two men but if you're fly
1:04:31
fishing and fishing out of it I don't think it would be perfect for two but we also have them uh that are really nice
1:04:37
on the river again with an anchoring system and a a small motor so people will have their choice that'd be cool oh
1:04:44
my god that would be the best and that anchoring system is is exactly what it sounds like when you're drifting
1:04:49
drifting drifting boom you see a good spot like Mel says a weed bed boom you drop the anchor and then you work it work it then you lift it up and you
1:04:55
start either rowing or or if you bring a motor they have to bring their own motor in though right Mel you're not going to supply the motors correct that's the way
1:05:02
we're going to start it yes good idea that's a safe idea i like smart thinking
1:05:08
for sure now my colleague about a half hour ago uh and I just let it fly but
1:05:14
we'll we'll go back to it now he said that uh you know what what uh the type
1:05:19
of trip that you offer these flying trips you just you drive there and unload and you can bring all of your
1:05:25
stuff and he mentioned pillows and he mentioned his little teddy bear he mentioned like everything but I want to
1:05:33
talk about that for just a minute because that must be a nightmare for you when that happens you know somebody
1:05:40
drives up from the city and they got a van full of goodies that Ted in no you
1:05:46
can't imagine if you had Ted the the Ted movie Baron oh my
1:05:52
god have him there talk to us about that because that's got to be one of your biggest nightmares
1:05:58
well I think it's no longer a nightmare uh we used to be able to or not to be
1:06:03
able to we used to try and really limit people and saying you shouldn't bring
1:06:09
this stuff right now I really don't mind if they come in with an extra trailer because they're paying for an extra
1:06:14
flight we're in the business of flying all right but the idea is to really make them understand that the cost that
1:06:21
they're paying includes 100 lb of gear per person based
1:06:26
on a body weight of 220 lb the reason we added the body weight thing
1:06:33
yeah that's why you get an extra couple cases of beer girl thank you you see my
1:06:38
logic the reason we do that is um we do have a lot of American guests as well and you
1:06:45
can imagine that the average fisherman is not 220 lbs so even if they were
1:06:51
within their weight limits we still ended up having it to do an extra flight just because there were too many this
1:06:58
the body weight is excessive right um but then we're paying for that like the
1:07:04
the flying is just getting it's a lot insurance is going up the cost of maintenance is going up the salaries are
1:07:11
going up the the when it comes to aviation and flying in the costs are
1:07:16
really going up so that's why we're we've been a little bit more strict on saying "Look here's what your price
1:07:22
includes 100 pounds of gear which is it's doable you can do it if they want to bring more
1:07:30
I'm more than happy to to offer them an extra flight which they pay for and honestly I' I'd say like 25% of them
1:07:38
will gladly pay an extra flight then they don't have to worry about how much they bring in especially the beer
1:07:44
drinkers obviously." Oh yeah you've got a great story which we won't share with you today and it happened at one of your
1:07:52
camps a friend of ours had an extra plane flown in just for that i think I
1:07:58
know that friend yes years ago she knows him yes sir so it does happen does
1:08:05
happen for sure yeah so so yeah I think I think there's there's a lot of things that people can look at with with that
1:08:12
and I like being able to tell them there's little tricks on saving weight and planning your menus um and when we
1:08:21
do shows like yours and we've had other shows here that um I think that's what I
1:08:26
try and get them to say is look guys you can do a really good trip like this just be conscious of your weight limits so
1:08:33
you're not paying more and again it's it's the idea that we want to keep it affordable for for everybody to be able
1:08:39
to do this right um you know a trip to where were you guys quants right now an
1:08:45
extra trip is almost $3,000 wow wow just for that extra flight so six guys paying
1:08:52
an extra three grand just for extra beer and food and um
1:08:57
I wonder you know I bet you I bet you there's a lot of there is still a lot of guys that will do that though it be this
1:09:03
four or five six guys they say "Hey well I don't give a [ __ ] this is our lifetime trip let's bring a extra plane of good
1:09:08
stakes and everything else and all kinds of extras generator generator yeah yeah
1:09:13
so but you know to truly experience something like Quants or obviously the
1:09:18
Sutton which takes it to a whole other level you kind of have to wean yourself
1:09:25
off of all of those conveniences you know no teddy bear no you can snuggle
1:09:30
weigh you can snuggle up to my hairy back how's that oh that's a grizzly bear i didn't want to sleep with a marmet i
1:09:36
don't want to sleep with a teddy bear I think that's that's definitely something you can't even put in a
1:09:42
brochure because when you're thinking you said it right the conveniences we're so used to having them that we think
1:09:49
they're necessities right but those are not essential items and when you strip
1:09:54
down from all that and you're in this most beautiful wild natural place and
1:10:00
you don't have to worry about handling and the logistics of bringing your this and in and out and charging this then
1:10:08
you can truly experience it for what it is and and get rid of that need for
1:10:13
things we have so much stuff that we don't need we we're we're bad for that i
1:10:19
mean we go on on these like if anybody has got experience at packing we do and
1:10:24
even so I brought my teddy bear last time to your place but he brought a a cappuccino martini machine or whatever
1:10:31
like that out in the wild so but even us you know we find ourselves in these
1:10:36
places look look at he perked up the only thing I've said this whole thing he perks up when I said martini cappuccino
1:10:41
martini oh my god we we say why are we why did we bring
1:10:46
that you know but but you have this thing that you can't be without your
1:10:51
your possessions right but uh to really experience any of Mel's uh trips you
1:10:58
really got to strip it down you got to strip it down and you got to challenge yourself to survive cuz I think the best
1:11:06
part of these trips is the survival element in including food here make if
1:11:11
you if you're thinking about it you should do it in that we're going to spend two suppers with walleye and
1:11:18
you're going to go out you're going to have to catch so don't bring those two nights you won't have enough food so that you're going to catch them i
1:11:23
guarantee you you're going to catch pike or walleye in these lakes they always have them the eater size especially but that's what you do you bring it in to
1:11:29
that sense and say "Okay there's two suppers are dedicated for walley." And you'll have some sandwiches walleye sandwiches the next day and all that but
1:11:35
you know it's another way of pairing down on your weight and food and stuff like that so good point good point uh
1:11:41
Mel any um any openings this year can people still get a hold of you can they
1:11:46
still get into some of those camps yeah so yeah we've got uh we've got spots for
1:11:52
for all kinds of them some of them are a little closer so the the price ranges vary with the distance of the where the
1:11:59
lakes are uh but all of them are outpost camps one single lake uh sorry single
1:12:04
cabin per lake uh and we've got room for some trophy pike destinations some great
1:12:10
walleye trips nice paddling can you give us just a price range of what they can
1:12:16
could expect sure i brought that surprisingly I don't know these by heart so if you want to do the the quickest
1:12:23
way you could do it is let's say four guys uh for a half week so Saturday to Wednesday you're looking at around
1:12:30
$1,300 per person tax in that's your flight in and out the cabin boats motors
1:12:36
and gas they just need to bring their sleeping bag and fishing gear and food
1:12:41
and then if they go for a full week a group of four you're looking at 1,900 per person tax in those are the closer
1:12:49
lakes okay closer in what give me a sense of of what a half hour flight yeah
1:12:54
about a 30 minute flight yeah 30-minut flight and those lakes are really good for a lot of pickroll um every once in a
1:13:01
while they're catching a big pike but just they're easy lakes they're good for numbers um great for groups of four to
1:13:09
six eight people and then you've got quants uh where you guys were so let's
1:13:15
say a full week there um little better for six guys uh full week looking at 1,600 wow
1:13:24
that's That's a bargain that's a bargain and a half i think we might send our cameraman vulva there just to When's the
1:13:32
peak fly uh bite again when was that i think we're going to send him there
1:13:38
june that was in June okay june june is really bad for blackflies boba is that
1:13:45
he's from the Ukraine and he does not like our Canadian bugs any type of them
1:13:50
Mel anything if they fly he's not real happy with them like he's not impressed sorry Boba
1:13:57
you should have seen him at the camp oh my god oh god anyways uh we could talk with you all day obviously mal really
1:14:03
appreciate you taking the time and joining us wish you nothing but the best of uh seasons ahead and um if um yeah if
1:14:12
we uh we'll send people your way anybody that's looking for now that I know you still have some openings which is
1:14:18
usually what the problem is this time of year people say "Boy I'd like to go on one of those uh you know real adventure
1:14:25
flyin trips." And I say "Well when did you want what year did you want to do it?" Because they always think that you
1:14:30
can just pick up the phone and and book these things right but um if we do get some calls we'll direct them your way
1:14:36
for sure and uh we uh we'll uh we'll call you on that the py floating trip i
1:14:44
think that might be something uh do you quickly want to tell folks about the Sutton River adventure oh sure of course
1:14:51
the Sutton uh the Sutton is an easy one um that one there you can do with the
1:14:56
natives the the Chuck-am family can guide people so if you don't want to do the whole river alone and um deal with
1:15:04
the polar bears you can do a guided trip with them and still get to excellent fishing it doesn't matter how you do
1:15:10
this trip the fishing is tremendous and then obviously there's the typical float
1:15:15
where we drop off at Holly Lake which is the beginning of the Sutton and then we you paddle all the way to the bay that's
1:15:22
the Hudson Bay and we pick you up there 7 to 10 days later oh that's cool and
1:15:28
there's two there's there's the Searun specs and then there's the native specks
1:15:33
right in that in that river and you can target both yeah what a what a Wow that's an adventure that's those once
1:15:40
ina-lifetime uh adventures for sure how many people do you could like how does
1:15:46
it work i'd say yeah the season's short so typically by the end of July the 23rd
1:15:52
or 24th of July um Albert who has a camp up there he'll say "Okay well the seaun
1:15:57
are in land so they're they're catching them all the time." So we start the very end of July into the first week of
1:16:03
September and September is still really good but then the weather is tough and I mean it's it's coastal weather right
1:16:09
you're right that's see the sea so that's our window end of July into first
1:16:16
week of September and we try and stagger all the groups where you're not you're not following each other you're not
1:16:22
struggling plus it's a trout fishery you don't want to put too many people up there so I'd say 50 to 60 people max wow
1:16:31
and it's 50 no wonder it's so uh booked so far in advance because it is truly an
1:16:36
experience of a lifetime to to drift the Sutton River i I mean there's a handful of rivers on the planet that have that
1:16:46
stature that the Sutton River has and so to have one here in your backyard man that's And that mean fly fishing and
1:16:52
gear fishing there's no restrictions up there that's right right on the only restriction is single barbless hooks but
1:16:58
you can fly fish it's the best best place to try and fly fish even if you've
1:17:03
never fly fished before you're definitely gonna be successful uh or spinners it it really doesn't matter
1:17:09
they're they are it's very unique for the the quantity of big fish and
1:17:16
colorful bright oh my god anyways getting all excited about that now uh
1:17:22
but um how far in advance you would you somebody have to call you for a trip to
1:17:28
the sun i possibly have two spots left for next year but I do have to say uh
1:17:34
unfortunately I had two groups that cancelled for this year which is unheard of so if someone is looking for this
1:17:40
year and has dreamt it up then I do have spots for this year wow that's rare people for people listening that's Mel
1:17:48
always says we say Mel when can we shoot that i don't need you guys to advertise that i'm over booked for 2 years come on
1:17:54
like always so there you go if you're listening to this or watching this and uh you have the means and capability of
1:18:02
making decisions like that uh that is an opportunity of a lifetime so contact uh
1:18:08
Hurst Air talk to Melanie and get in on that opportunity because that is fantastic good stuff um Mel thank you so
1:18:17
much have yourself a contact how about contact anything you have any special numbers or anything that the people can
1:18:23
get a hold of you sure the toll-free number is
1:18:29
866844-5700 and uh the website hurstair.com you can email um before I
1:18:35
leave you I do want to say with everything that's going on with with borders and travel and uncertainty
1:18:43
um I would ask uh as we do have a lot of Canadians but to remind the Canadians
1:18:48
that there are a lot of places they can come in for a vacation in Ontario and close to home so uh do kind of have your
1:18:56
stations and um utilize that good point and call absolutely anytime wonderful good point
1:19:02
and the next time we see you up at your place that guitar that's sitting in the corner we want it we want to hear it
1:19:09
played okay all righty i'll work on that thanks Mel you take care of yourself
1:19:14
thank you guys see you uh Hurst Air uh legendary obviously Mel is second or
1:19:21
third generation uh of ownership correct of Hurst Air it's been around red Fisher
1:19:28
red Fisher he did Hurst Air he did Hurst Air no way with George probably right i would think with Mel's dad George wow uh
1:19:36
it's legendary just as soon as you drive into that operation you know there's
1:19:42
history there you can feel it you can scrape it off of things it's just It's a slick operation when you go in there
1:19:48
you're not there's not little rinky dinky little thing i mean they've got a good setup there it's very impressive so
1:19:55
um they do a great job and they access some great um water great fishing for sure so
1:20:01
Pim i'm excited to go back to that that one that would be a neat trip that one would trip the Sutton you know I in as
1:20:11
much as it's it's sexy right the the Sutton is just one of those from our
1:20:16
perspective from a shooting perspective it's a tough one like it's Oh it's tough
1:20:22
uh Glenn Carr and Reno and I did that back in It had to be
1:20:28
the late 80s and first of all we had all our food
1:20:33
stolen but that's a whole other other issue were you eating broke drought did you have to eat trout i had to no came
1:20:40
back came back everything's gone oh my god so anyways uh that was a wonderful
1:20:46
experience but but the other ones that Mel's talking about uh give them a try hurst we can guarantee you one thing we
1:20:53
can't guarantee you the fishing is going to be great we can't guarantee you that you won't be buginfested we can't
1:20:58
guarantee you that it won't rain or blow or whatever but we what we can guarantee
1:21:04
you is that the service that Mel and her team offers um is next to memorable
1:21:09
obvious next to none so there you go yeah very good uh that or it anything we need to add in here last minute Dean or
1:21:16
we good uh one of you has a bonus code in front of you i think it's you an I happen to have this week's bonus code
1:21:23
right there come on now and that bonus code wow like this takes a lot of work
1:21:29
to get all this connection wow connectivity how do they do that in our department i don't know this week's uh
1:21:35
bonus code is float plane float plane f L O A T P L A N E if you take that and
1:21:45
type it into the bonus code section of our contest page you will receive not
1:21:50
one not two not three how's about 10 and let's give him 10
1:21:56
three bonus code entries wow wow that are it dean I think I'm done now huh
1:22:01
Dean yeah that's it can I go to lunch uh yeah I think we can go to lunch on behalf of the entire crew uh Boba there
1:22:07
who was trembling when I said we were going to send him up to Quant he did not like it he was doing the reeling the
1:22:12
hand there that finger was on his way up uh Nick uh he he was there the whole
1:22:17
show nick with our martini top martini and of course our uh
1:22:22
illustrious producer Dean Taylor he's Peter Bowman thanks for joining
1:22:27
[Music]
1:22:36
us this episode of Outdoor Journal Radio has been brought to you in part by the
1:22:41
Invasive Species Center protecting Canada's land and water from invasive species freedom Cruise Canada rent the
1:22:49
boat own the memories jmbb Cycle and Marine your home for all things powers
1:22:55
sports boats and equipment and sail the ultimate destination for your outdoor
1:23:02
adventures [Music]

The Essential Guide to Fly-In Fishing | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 169

fishncanada.com

Ontario Drive To Fishing Lodge Guide | Fish'n Canada

Early Spring = Bad Fishing? | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 114

Are Gobies Reshaping Lake Simcoe?

Ice storm crazy, Steelhead, springers and silly goose stories! PNW Harvest Recreation 12-23-22

Fishing, Hunting and Shellfish in the PNW Week of October 29, 2022 - Harvest Recreation

European Versus Mekong River Cruises. Just How Different Are They?

6 Things Ask Yourself Before Booking A Cruise For 2020 / 2021

Giant Lake Trout at Loon Lodge | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 132

Outtakes and Bloopers 2016 | Fish'n Canada

10 Real Life Towns Like Stars Hollow

The Bests! - GEEKS CORNER - Episode #755

Smallmouth and Largemouth After the Spawn | Fish'n Canada

Up next in 10

The Essential Guide to Fly-In Fishing | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 169

fishncanada.com