TOMORROW'S FISH

From Where It’s The Way It’s Always Been

Share your history in fishing, current fishing experience 

Kvichak Aspelund (KA): “I’ve been fishing since I was a child, as long as I could remember. I only got into fly fishing in my teenage years. I started guiding for Bear Trail Lodge in 2014. 10 years later and now we’re at the point of catching some of the biggest fish the Naknek’s ever seen. 

Describe changes you’ve experienced in your fisheries over the years 

KA: “One thing will be up, but another will be down. The need for balance is so obvious. The sockeye returns have been all-time recently, but the king returns have been crashing. 

What is the role of conservation, in general, in your fishing experience? 

KA: “Being a commercial fisherman,  a sportfishing guide and a native Alaskan, wearing all those hats can be difficult sometimes. Our sockeye fishery has been a generationally renewable resource, and I always want it to be here. Every commercial fisherman, every sportfishing guide I know, we take an approach to keep this place as it’s always been. As a guide, it comes down to enforcing the little things with your clients. Your personal efforts are compounding.”

How did you first become aware, what are your priorities for impacts to your fisheries related to climate change?

KA: “I’ve talked with a former biologist out here. Up near the Nushagak River, we’re seeing historic Sockeye returns where there used to not be. potentially because of the warming waters of the lakes being more productive for those fish that use it for habitat, but the king returns are really plummeting. I’m concerned it might be hard for us to remember the scale of things, in the face of climate change. These warmer temperatures could be helping one thing, but hurting twenty others, beyond repair, that we aren’t seeing yet. We get so focused on the changes we’re seeing immediately, I think it will be easy to lose focus on the entire system, and the entire system working the way it has, together, is why this place is as beautiful and abundant as it is.” 

What would you say to recreational anglers interested in advocating for climate ready fisheries?

KA: “Honestly, firstly, I’d ask about their own experience and concerns. There’s no better way than a day on the water, no better place than the boat to have a difficult conversation like that. I’d like to know what they are interested in. I’d share my experience, what I’ve seen in my decades being here, growing up here. That’s one of the best parts of the program we have here at Bear Trail Lodge. Me and these other graduates of the Bristol Bay Fly Fishing and Guiding Academy, it’s allowed us to share our life, to bring the landscape to life with our clients. I think it helps people do more than just catch a big fish. It’s the community, the Place. I guess I’m saying I wouldn’t just start talking to them. I’d listen first, and try to have a conversation. One thing I might suggest to people, though, is to actually encourage people to visit somewhere, maybe it’s here, maybe it’s somewhere else, that reminds you of what you don’t want to lose. Get out to a place that’s relatively untouched. I’ve had so many clients who come out here after the fight to defeat the Pebble Mine, just because they wanted to see what was so worth fighting about. That movement, which was really international and grassroots, defeated the greatest threat this region has ever seen. I think, in a way, it’s good to refresh yourself on what we’re all going to have to continue to fight for, and what you can do to protect it. That fuels you. 

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