This episode features a panel of Southeast Alaska locals—guides, hunters, and conservationists—discussing the Tongass National Forest. We discuss past logging impacts, the Roadless Rule, and transitioning to young-growth management. We also share stories about effects on salmon, deer, and bear habitat, the growth of tourism and recreation, and how upcoming public comment periods regarding the next forest plan.
Jeff: All right. Thanks again for listening to the podcast. We’ve got another panel. This is going to be kind of a spring thing that I’ve enjoyed. So working with Mary from BHA, getting together some people to talk about some issues. Last year was the Mendenhall wetlands, and now we’re going to be talking about Tongass National Forest. So thanks for helping set this up, Mary.
Mary Graves BHA Alaska: Yeah, of course.
Jeff: So we have Lucas and Bjorn. Everyone is getting snow except for me down here in Ketchikan. Two of you are in Juneau. Lucas, you’re in Petersburg. So we kind of give like a short little introduction for a couple seconds here, who you are, what you do, and no satchquatch stories yet. We’ll get into that later.
Mary: I’ll go ahead. I’m Mary Gleaves. I’m the Alaska Chapter Coordinator for Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Like Jeff said, I’m in Juneau. And, yeah, currently excited to talk about the Tongas a little bit. Go ahead.
Lucas Mullen, Guide: Oh, I’m sorry. It was different on mine. Go ahead. One of you.
Bjorn Dihle, Writer: All right, Lucas, I’m taking this. I’m in Juneau. Yeah, life’s gone southeast Alaskan. I’ve done everything from commercial fishing to, I don’t know, I mean, survey work, all sorts of stuff. These days, I do a lot of wildlife guiding for film crews and help out different groups, try to start bear viewing areas and companies. And I also work, do a lot of freelance communication and media work that’s all kind of centered around wildlife and conservation.
Lucas: Right on. My name is Lucas Mullen in Petersburg. I’m a big game guide outfitter who runs that as a business and also operates a fly fishing business with a partner of mine, Kevin Main. Commercial fished as well for years and haven’t done too much of that in the last year or so, but I still have my permit, so I might still. Keep the options open.
Jeff: So Tongass National Forest is something that’s kind of a hot topic issue right now. And I don’t know why I feel like in the modern society, we have to have some sort of qualifier, some sort of statement that says, hey, just because we’re talking about Tongass does not mean, and just because we want to preserve the roadless rule does not mean that we’re anti-logging or anti-development or anything like that. So it’s kind of unfortunate that it ends up being this lack of a conversation when a lot of people want to have good conversations about what happened in the past and what we can do now. And that doesn’t mean that we’re begrudging people who are loggers. It doesn’t mean that we’re anti-logging or anything like that. We’re just discussing the past, what we’ve learned from that, and going forward, what’s the most effective thing for some of the local economies.
Jeff: So maybe, Bjorn, can we start with you and just kind of, since you grew up here, you’ve, you’ve lived your entire life in the Tongass. How have you come to appreciate it in maybe a different light? How has your journey taken you from, you know, hunter, angler to someone who’s a little bit more involved in the conservation?
Bjorn: Yeah I mean for me it was it’s it was never either or you know conservation has to work with the economy has to work for people otherwise you know local people specifically or otherwise it’s I mean it doesn’t work and I guess so for me what really hit me was when a lot of. Was logged kind of when I was a kid and it was interesting because you know back then everyone was going over there to go deer hunting you know there was because you had that after you have the clear cuts as most folks know you know if you don’t have a big winter you got all that under you know blueberry bushes and whatnot that pop up but deer eat it deer happy you know lots more deer till the big snows come and then that parade but seeing that and it was really interesting because you know you’re watching all these deer right after this area was logged everyone’s just filling up on deer and then we got a big winter and it’s like all the deer are gone and and you know and then you compared it even now like that whole zone you’re allowed three deer a year and then you know the zones that really haven’t been hit up in the abc’s uniform you’re allowed six deer um and just you know how much better the deer did and then it kind of carried on to I was kind of transitioning out of deckhanding on commercial fishing boats and I got hired just because I had a fair amount of just experience on my own from hunting and wandering around with a fair amount of experience with bears and I got kind of hired out of nowhere you know this was a shocker to me that people want to go look at bears and pay a ton of money to do it and I did a couple years of that and I got hired.
Bjorn: Some private natively and that they wanted to develop into a bear viewing area and it was just this this shocker to me was it had been logged down to the to the banks and you know I spent all this time like they were so excited about this zone and it was trying to figure out like why why is this area not holding bears why and then you know I spent I took a bunch of people there and you’re walking these high-paying visitors, these people are paying like $1,000 a day through debt, second young growth that reached them exclusion. Anyone who’s walked through that, it’s spooky stuff. So no one was really stoked. I think in seven or eight trips I lived there, we didn’t encounter one bear just face-to-face that wasn’t up in the woods, not fishing. And it was interesting, you know 10 years later I went back I was like what was going on in that stream I literally walked the whole stream with waiters and it just wasn’t holding any fish I don’t know if that was because there just wasn’t enough debris or sediment to hold up but that was kind of this eye-opener to me it was like you know these this this corporation who hired me was like, they desperately wanted to make money and they did the once and done cut.
Bjorn: And, and then like they got 150 years before they’re going to be able to make money in that zone. Whereas if, you know, even if they had done something, you know, even if they left the buffer zones, a hundred feet on each side, you could be making money off this zone. There could be fish, you know, producing for fishermen and you’d have these bears there and you’d, you know, people would be making money, you know, families would be getting fed. And it was all just because this they logged down right down to the creek so I guess for me that those kind of those different things were like this big eye opener is like well you know I want to be really engaged in how we go forward with just forest management in the tongas because that’s how I make my living one and you know and I you know I love hunting that’s like my favorite thing in the world and so just you know it’s very practical it’s it’s you know you gotta have a. You got to have the economy, but you also got to have, you know, conservation, you know, you want to have the, the local economy, which, you know, you can do with, with, with logging in certain cases, but you can’t just do this once and done, log down to the creeks and then, you know, stare at your belly button for 150 years and wish that you could be making money that whole time period.
Jeff: Yeah. I remember a couple of rivers on Prince of Wales that But the corporation land owned part of it, so that was logged. And then upriver, it was federal land and it was logged up there too. So it didn’t matter who owned it, it was getting logged. And some of those rivers became notorious for not really having fish, but because you had other rivers, it wasn’t a big deal. But then over time, like you said, you start to realize, man, there’s not a lot of fish here. And you start to look at the habitat and 10, 15, 20 years later, stuff is coming back, but it’s not coming back healthy. And you don’t have that robust system that you see at some of the other rivers, like the Clowoc River or Thorn River on Prince of Wales, where you have a bigger buffer and you have those older trees and you have deer and you have bear and you have fish. And it’s not, it’s not a coincidence that they all compliment each other.
Bjorn: Yeah and there’s no reason why you know it doesn’t it complements the economy too to be able to have that and you know it’s not an either or deal it’s not like like we were saying earlier I don’t think anyone here is against logging we just want to be really careful as we go forward with our with our you know our land management plan
Jeff: Yeah lucas what’s been your experience as far as opinions on the forest,
Lucas: I guess, shoot, it’s tough. The guy that I co-own the guiding business with, he was in on some of those big projects in the 70s in Unit 4. And it’s come full circle for him. I mean, I think he’s proud of his work and his time. But to do what he does now and what I do, we do, is, you know, we have to have habitat that supports the ecosystem, you know, completely. So I’m not against logging at all in a responsible manner. I think it’s tough for these corporations or bigger businesses to make it financially viable. And I think a lot of that, it’s a problem for us that live here to, you know, see it being done responsibly and say, oh yeah, that’s the way it’s going to be when, you know, we haven’t seen much of that, I don’t think.
Jeff: Yeah, I have some numbers here, the pace at which, and that was kind of the biggest issue is the pace at which the logging was happening in the 60s and 70s. And it was happening on corporation land, happening on state land, happening on federal land. So it’s not just the Tongass, it was all Southeast Alaska. But the annual harvest was around 450 million board feet in 1980. And that’s just, that’s an incredible amount of timber. And then between 2002 and 2023, it’s been more like 30, which shows the taper. And a lot of that came from the easiest stuff that was the most accessible was the stuff right off the road. you build a small road, you can get right to it. And the easy stuff was logged now to get back into some of those deeper spots to access the most valuable timber. Like you’re now running out of loss. And so it becomes a, do we want taxpayer money going to build these roads to a timber sale that’s not going to make money? Or do we want to, you know, maybe adjust or shift that funding to something else all while, you know, making sure that there’s enough, maybe second growth to support the mills and whatnot because that’s an important thing too so what’s the the best idea going forward is something that we need to have good conversation about
Bjorn: Yeah it seemed like you know up until you know lately there’s been a few curveballs where we’re kind of wondering what’s going on with some vague language but that’s kind of what the forest service was working to you know getting that young growth uh you know for you know focusing on young growth you know we You’ve got to leave most of the old growth behind because one, it doesn’t. You know, we’re subsidizing the cut. I can’t remember what the exact stat was that I read, but it was something like we lost $1.7 billion of taxpayers’ money on these timber cells over a 40-year period. So it’s like, well, why should we be losing money on these timber cells that end up hurting us locals? And then we have thousands of miles of these existing logging roads and all this young growth that is, you know, just about ready. Uh, to be harvested. But Lucas is right. It’s like, you know, to make money off these cuts, it’s, it’s not easy. And you talk to people in the, in the timber industry and it’s like to make, actually make money off the, you know, some of the land, you know, that’s, that’s, it’s not a, it’s not a simple formula.
Jeff: That was one of the interesting things about the roadless rule tools that, that didn’t mean that you would never be able to build roads again. There’ve been, And I think, yeah, 13 out of 16 hydro projects in Southeast Alaska have come on roadless areas. And so there’s a process of saying, hey, we want to do this hydroelectric power project. It’s in a roadless area and they’ve been allowed. There’s been 35 mining projects that have been allowed and that’s not open pit pebble mine type mine. These are hard rock underground mines, but the roadless rule was not an absolute. It was meant to function as you know let’s not go crazy let’s let’s let’s make sure we look on look at these things on a case-by-case basis see what’s going to work what makes most sense for the local economies so to just repeal it seems it’s it’s I understand why there’s a lot of, backlash and a lot of people trying to keep the roadless rule,
Bjorn: Yeah, people don’t talk about that. Sorry, go ahead. I was making your point. People don’t talk about that too much, all those projects that actually went through.
Mary: Yeah, the realest rule only applies to timber harvest, actually, which I think is a misconception. And that, you know, we had an exemption, a Tongass exemption back in, remind me, Jeff, this was two administrations ago, or no, 2016. And at that time, I don’t think, you know, there were a lot of timber sales that went out to bid and they weren’t, there wasn’t the harvest because, you know, folks will look at the sale and say, well, that’s, that’s not going to pencil out for me.
Jeff: So yeah and I think 1990 was the timber reformation or reform act and that was to provide enough timber to meet the demand and then the demand has has fluctuated quite a bit so yeah some of those years it was as low as three million dollars but some of the mills were able to get the the wood fiber that they needed from either state or corporation land too and so it’s not just that the the mills are all tied right to to the tongas and allowing logging on the tongas but there’s a lot of degrees to it. And it’s, it’s real, it’s a lot more complex than I even thought. So it’s, you keep going into it and there’s layers and layers and layers.
Bjorn: Yeah, yeah. And then, like, you know, the Togus Reform Act leading up to that, I think it was the 80s, I could be wrong, but, you know, the corporations were logging so fast that they went bankrupt because we flooded them. You know, the market was so flooded, and when you’re demanding however many, you know, how much acreage of timber that has to be, you know, you mandate this and people are logging so fast that, you know, if I remember correctly, Ted Stevens, I mean, the corporations went bankrupt. And ted stevens had to do a billion dollar federal uh bailout so you know it I mean hopefully like you know we’re all talking this way and you know I talked to some old loggers and like, and some of them was like you know we were doing the best we could with what we knew at the time you know they didn’t understand you know how uh how you know when conducted and you know these big clear cuts and whatnot how much they can hurt you know deer and salmon habitat you know winter deer habitat and stem exclusion and all that stuff they didn’t I mean they were just doing what they thought was best and even some of the scientists you know in the 70s they were ordering people to go pull you know logs out of the creek like so they’d have crews that would just go get all the woody debris out of these salmon creeks and then there’s like you know nowhere for the salmon to spawn and yeah so you know hopefully we’ve learned from you know the process and. And that we can, you know, all just be very vigilant as we go forward and make sure that, you know, we’re doing it in a way that benefits Americans and the local economy and us hunters and fishermen and Alaska lifestyle.
Jeff: What are some of the things that you kind of want to see, like your ideal Tongass going forward? I always think about the Forest Service cabins and how great they are and how they don’t really exist in other states the way they do here. But then I look at the shape a lot of them are in. And so many of them were built in the 60s or 70s, and they’re pretty aged. And some have been damaged beyond repair, and so they’re taken off. But my ideal Tongass going forward would be the cabin. The fly-out cabin, the drive-to cabin, the boat-to cabin, like that sort of recreation so you can really use it in an effective manner. And even though that would probably be inviting a lot of other people who might want to come up, yeah, that’s part of it. If we want to do a recreation economy, then that’s going to be a bit of a trade-off, that there’s going to be more numbers up here. But it’s a beautiful place for people to go to. So what would be something that you would like the Tongass to look, that would be like maybe a revenue-creating thing for the future? Lucas, go ahead. I’m going to call on you.
Lucas: Well, I wouldn’t say it’s something I really want necessarily, but it is, in my eyes, the future, and that’s tourism and recreation. The writing’s on the wall. There’s more and more operators in Southeast, in the Tongass every year. The existing outfits are growing. So to be honest, I think that’s really going to be, it already is in a lot of cities and boroughs, but it’s just going to get bigger and bigger and a way to manage your ideal, Tongass recreation, outdoor stuff with these visitors and everyone benefiting from them, I think is in my mind, the future of what’s going to happen, whether we like it or not.
Jeff: Tourism, recreation. What’s your tourism load in Petersburg? Oh, see, Juneau and Ketchikan cannot get enough cruise ships. We just seem to just want more and more, and we want more docks. It doesn’t matter. Bring on the ships. But how has Petersburg been with that?
Lucas: Petersburg, we get a fair bit of midsize cruise ships. They just signed a deal with the American, I forget what it is, It’s one of the American Constellation. That’s one of their ships. American Cruise Lines? I don’t know if it’s probably one of those mid-sized ships to extend one of the ducks and bring more ships in. We don’t get any of the big ships, but it’s pretty steady. I’d say in the last 20 years, it’s definitely gone up a lot. Including all kind of the smaller yacht or Seattle-based smaller ships. But we get busy, but nothing like Ketchikan or Juneau. I mean, not even close.
Jeff: No, it’s pretty wild.
Mary: Just on that topic, you know, what kind of Tongass you want to see is really what the update and modernization of this plan is intended to do. And, you know, we have this need to change comment period right now where it goes to March 20th. It’s a 30-day comment period started, well, 20 days, 30 days previous in late February. And I’m not going to do math at the moment, but... There’s a comment period coming right after that, which is what can be kind of confusing to folks. They’re like, well, we just had one comment period, and now we’ve got another comment period. And what do they want us to comment on, right? The need to change comment period is mandated when you’re about to come out with an environmental impact statement, which is what’s going to happen. And they’re trying to figure out what people want, what changes people want to see. Kind of suggest alternatives. suggest, you know, and if you want to see more tourism, if you want to see less tourism, if you don’t want to see tourism in these specific areas, because that’s where I hunt and fish, or that’s where the commercial fishermen are, and we don’t need to crowd that, you know, area, things like that. And then the draft plan, the first draft they’re going to present and hold community meetings on in April. We’re going to have comment period about March 23rd to early May. It’s going to be a 45-day comment period directly afterwards, and that’s going to be to provide feedback on the actual plan. But all of it is really one big scoping opportunity for the public to say, this is what we want to see. Because right now, like you were saying, Jeff, earlier, there’s a lot of amendments that have been made to this plan over the years. And the whole plan hasn’t been updated since 1979. So like we’re way overdue. There was a direction to transition to young growth. That’s kind of being pulled back on a little bit. And this is the time to really weigh in and say, this is what we want to see. This is where we want to see certain things. This is where I want to keep things as is and kind of provide some direction for the next 15 years of how we want to see the Tongass.
Jeff: Yeah, it’s kind of unfortunate that, well, it’s very unfortunate that it’s hard to get a solidified plan in a specific direction because every four to eight years you’re having this whiplash of back and forth. And so it’s, and a lot of it’s coming from Washington. So like your local people who are working on the Tongass in the Tongass aren’t responsible for making these decisions. They end up, you know, providing what is needed for the reports and for the plans, but ultimately those plans are signed off for and mostly created by people who might not have even ever visited here, which is really unfortunate. Or you have the political necessity of this is what should be done with this, even though it’s not necessarily what’s best for the local economy. So that’s kind of a very frustrating task for those in the Forest Service.
Mary: Yeah, that’s true. You know, that’s a little bit of our job is to try and educate people on the D.C. side. I have a counterpart in D.C. that lobbies and talks to people about the values of the Tongass who have never been here or who may not know certain things. And then, you know, me on the ground in Alaska, what I do is try to help the Forest Service engage the public. Because, like I was saying, there are some of these things that people feel like they’ve already done them. They feel like they’ve done them and they haven’t been heard. And there’s you know there’s two pieces to it that you know we’re kind of working on on the back end.
Jeff: Bjorn can you talk a little bit about the impact of the Tongass habitat on fish populations as being in the commercial fishing industry you’ve probably seen a lot and over your lifetime.
Bjorn: Yeah I had this moment you know where. Were trolling and you know I just you know a lot of us growing up here you just you take humpies for granted and I had this moment where it was you know you hanging out with all these trollers and they’re all just talking about how much they hate pink salmon because you know they get carpal tunnels from releasing them or you know they’re worth you know just not not much money and, you know you know call them bait when you’re long lining or crabbing and you know so it was just kind of like remember like kind of at the start of deckhanding all these boats where for a while I was sticking my nose up at at humpies and you know and then it was like all of a sudden you know you’d go from catching 500 humpies a day trolling and then what the next year it was like there was no humpies and then the next year there was hardly any you know there’s very few humpies and it was at that point it was kind of starting to get into this bear viewing and you know you’re going to this creek and if there’s no salmon there you’re not gonna have bears there and you’re not gonna make money so it was like all of a sudden I was like you know just struck with like man I’ve just been such a such a snob um and how important humpies are and you know and and that’s something we kind of talked to you were talking about earlier how like well this one stream got smacked. But we still have this other stream that produces but you know these these runs of salmon are all different you know they have they all have their different natal streams they return to so if you smack one then you know maybe one year you know you have a strong run in one creek and not a good run at the other creek so that’s one of them you know just having that different there’s I’m sure there’s some scientific term for it but ability that have you know a lot of options for salmon to spawn is one but the and the big one too for sure was you know when I started trolling there there’s still a lot of Kings.
Bjorn: You know, we still have like out of Plasso, we’d have around Surge Bay, you know, out of Jacoby Island, we still have like 75 King Days, you know. And my guy who I fished with, really, really great guy, good friend, you know, he’d been fishing since whatever, late 60s. And, you know, initially he said, well, you know, the numbers haven’t really gone down, but man, the size sure has. And then the numbers started really going down. So that’s been kind of wild to see. And it’s just all just kind of like wild variabilities. Like last year up here in Juneau, like we haven’t been saying coho fishing for three weeks or whatever. And in some years it’s, you know, so. And you read like the, I mean, that’s the other thing too. We get kind of myopic and like baseline syndrome, I guess is the idea. But it’s like, you know, if you went back further, you know, and the palibit were everywhere, the salmon were everywhere. Now it’s like, you know, if you kept six coho in a day, you feel like you’re the luckiest dog, you know, in the kennel. But so that’s been interesting. And, you know, the rest of this day is a whole other conversation. But just talking about southeast, I think it’s important, you know, like I think the Tongue and the road this area is we account. For something like 25 percent of the pacific northwest salmon run and how important that is and you like and this goes back to my my snottyness about humpies and I eat humpies just because I feel like I you know one they’re not bad they’re good uh welcome and uh what’s that yeah you can smoke them man and they taste fantastic I mean I eat them fresh tabasco sauce rice if you need cheese put cheese on that it’s really good um but you know they’re the foundation of our of south of the tongas’s ecosystem is is pink salmon so it’s like you know it’s like the salmon that we take for granted but then it’s the foundation of everything and then you know you lose the salmon and then you lose you know you lose a lot of a lot of work a lot of money from fishermen to bear hunting guys to bear viewing guides to you know just across the board so yeah it definitely.
Bjorn: When I think of going forward, what I’m going to write in my comments to the Forest Service, I’m going to write, I want to see transition to young growth. We have such a great possibility there. I know loggers who log second growth, who make their living doing that. There’s no reason why we can’t have that and be supporting. A lot of our communities are so small that if you have a couple people that are working, or, you know, whatever, a small mill, like that’s a lot, that says a lot to have that money coming into a small community. So that’s huge for me is transitioning to all this available second growth besides like getting stuck in the muck, trying to go after, you know, the last pork chop of our old growth. And then, you know, I want to see more about. Protections for salmon, for watersheds. And I want to see more about how are we going to protect our deer for the future? What are we going to do? And that’s key stuff that I want going forward. And Lucas is 100% right. Ryan’s on the wall with tourism coming. So we might as well be as prepared as we can for being able to make that work for our economy me in a way that doesn’t negatively affect our lifestyle too much you know but that’s so those are the things that I’m I’m gonna write in my my comment
Jeff: Lucas you’ve done steelhead fishing and you’ve done some some guiding there and steelhead are interesting because you don’t have massive massive runs most of the rivers in southeast alaska are just a couple hundred fish and some of the surveys done are just a couple dozen here and there there’s small creeks and whatnot so So if we’re talking lost habitat on a river or a tributary, that could be a significant blow to steelhead. So can you talk a little bit about populations of some of these rivers that have steelhead that, man, if it gets logged down to the edge, it could be it for the entire run on that river?
Lucas: Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. But, you know, the rivers we fish in Southeast, like, you know. That have steelheads, they could be really small or they could, like, you could nearly, not quite jump across, but easily toss a rock over. You could try. Or... You know, you have to jet boat 100 yards across. So, and in some of these small runs, I mean, I couldn’t even guess. Some of the small runs around here, the biologists told me like a peak count would be like, I’m thinking of one in particular, he counted 15 fish for a peak run, right? So imagine I mean really any impact on a system like that could potentially ruin it completely I think it’s definitely. And again the steelhead runs even though there’s a system that gets 200 or 300 fish like the good ones, you still have to be there at the right place at the right time and have the fish there You could go get blanked on a good river that you know produces. And I think that it just shows how fragile especially that species are compared to, you know, chump salmon and pink salmon. Not just with the numbers, but yeah, the way they move to new systems when they can and stray. I’m sure steelhead at some point have. But yeah, I think it would be huge. Systems that I imagine that aren’t protected right now potentially altering the scope of our business definitely you know severe impact.
Jeff: So if Bjorn has some people out and they’re looking for bears, they don’t see a bear, you might be kind of disappointed because it’s bear country. But do steelheaders come up with the idea that, okay, steelheader are difficult to catch. And so if I happen to not see one in this small river, and like you said, time matters, conditions are so, so important. Do you see some of the people that have come up or even for hunting too, but have the steelheaders kind of looked around and thought, man, this is beautiful, pristine, fragile habitat, or have they kind of give you the impression that this is wild and the resources are unlimited?
Lucas: The steelhead guys, I’m pretty honest when I book the steelhead fishermen. And we all, to be honest, we get a lot of people from Washington where, where their steelhead numbers are not doing so well. And, and the trip is more booked on the wilderness experience if somebody calls me and they start talking numbers immediately you’re not the right guy for this trip you know go to the sea tuck and look at all the fish you know that you should do that instead of come with us so yeah we’re selling we’re really selling the tongas as a whole with the perk of a you might see a wild steelhead which is a win and then b be lucky enough to touch what mm-hmm.
Jeff: Yeah. When I think of iconic places to see bears, I think of Brooks Falls where they have the viewing platform and you can go there and there’s tons of people and there’s tons of bears. And most of the brown bear pictures you see probably come from there. But Southeast is much, much different. We have some small local ones, but like Ann Ann is not known globally for being like a great, amazing place to look at bears. So it’s kind of, it’s that, that wilderness that sets Tongass apart. You’re not going to a, a place with a lot of infrastructure. You want that wild peace and to see things exist as they did hundreds, thousands of years ago.
Lucas: Right. Pedigreed wilderness. Yep. No, that’s not, not what we’re going for.
Jeff: So kind of going forward here, what, uh, what is something that you’re looking forward to, to doing this spring outside of contacting people and keeping the good fight up? what’s something that you look forward to in the spring. Like, I can’t wait to get out for steelhead, but also just kind of get out. We talked a little bit before going out hooter hunting. It’s just so much fun when you’re out in the woods and you’re walking around and you’re just looking up in those trees and trying to find that grouse.
Mary: Are going to be a lot shorter this year with all the snow we have but yeah that’s on my list got my snowshoes ready just kind of waiting to start you know late march you start hearing them a lot more here there’s some places I’ve heard them like march 14th that’s kind of like the adrenaline rush just hearing them and you’re like where are they I want to go out we should go out tomorrow.
Jeff: You know it’s a difference in habitat there like like obviously some of the second growth is too thick you can’t see anything but some of those old old areas or some of those edges are the places you can access them better
Mary: Oh for sure and then you know there’s I mean not a lot was logged right around juno so recently that we have super thick stuff but there are pockets of it, and yeah there’s there’s better places than others on the mainland for sure and then we go over to Douglas Island sometimes and I got into that a lot more this last year just exploring I had never really frequented there and then we will boat actually to other areas if the weather allows and go exploring and then it’s kind of fun to at the end of the season look for deer sheds and things like that while you’re out.
Jeff: Do you keep your spots super secret? Is it like a mountain goat sheep type place or a moose camp type of secrecy?
Mary: It depends there are some spots yeah and then there’s other spots that you know folks want to go out and learn and especially if you’re just trying to get into hunting and you just move to alaska or a different place even in southeast is different than the interior it’s a good place to start and it’s just such a different kind of hunt and it it’ll take you all the hard places too so but without the pressure of like that big game aspect of hunting and it just you are forced to, acknowledge and witness and listen to everything around you especially while you’re looking for the grass so some places I openly share with folks and I don’t hunt them regularly because I like to share the spot and then there’s other places that you know just keep for myself.
Jeff: Bjorn when uh what are you looking forward to or when uh when the bears start to come out up there,
Bjorn: Oh well you know I mean it’s yeah I mean I don’t need to see bears that’s just how I make a lot of my money you know it’s all good I’m excited for the bears to come out but it’s, still like you know if someone wanted me to go help them film blue jays or shorebirds I’d love to go film shorebirds instead of bears or, develop a bird viewing area instead of developing bear viewing areas I’d be, Pretty excited about that. But I said, what I’m looking forward to is just getting the kids out, you know, camping, out on the boat. Probably take my older, who just turned seven. You know, we went gas hunting for the first time last year and skipped school and ended up getting one. But just, you know, doing that stuff, I love that. The river trips and my summer’s still a little up in the air with how much still work I’m going to have and all that. So, you know, either way, it’s all good. It’ll be a lot of adventures and, yeah, all good.
Jeff: Lucas, I’m assuming, there in Steelhead?
Lucas: Yeah, probably the first thing. Yeah, we usually set aside at least one day every trip to go to either a river that’s listed where we’ve never seen a fish or never been to or a river that’s not listed. And those are the exciting days when we’re out, when it’s not just work. To find a fish in one of those rivers is definitely a highlight if you can make it happen. So hopefully we get a few more this year.
Jeff: When do you start to see fish darts showing up for that spring run?
Lucas: Early mid-April. I think historically around here, we’ve been pretty much a spring, you know, quote-unquote spring run. Anecdotally, and I’ve witnessed very often times that the first few fish of the year look like they’ve been around since October. Or november but yeah and and the run peak is is slowly drifting forward so yeah early april is a good time even sometimes late march but that really depends on the weather right now it’s it’s not fishable
Jeff: So I convinced a buddy to come up it was the first three years or three years in a row it had been pretty good around like late march and that was kind of the anomaly so I convinced somebody to come up and the water was low and there was a lot of snow and so there hadn’t been much melt and there was nothing pushing up and so we got one fish in a week which was pretty pretty rough but you know a couple weeks later warmed up a little bit water came up and fishing was great but yeah it can vary by a couple days couple weeks but there’s just a lot of variables
Lucas: Right yeah definitely
Jeff: So uh in closing here what else would you like to to add What about either make a pitch for your business organization, make a pitch for the Tongass? Anything else you want to add?
Lucas: I don’t know. I like it the way it is. Hard to argue with, but change is inevitable. So we’ve got to deal with it somehow.
Jeff: And if people wanted to look into the business and the guiding, what’s the name of your outfit and how can they get in touch with you?
Lucas: The hunting side is Southeast Alaska Guiding. We do black bear, brown bear, and mountain goat hunts, boat-based. And then the fishing business is called Tongass on the Fly. They both have, yeah.com have websites. My cell phone number is 907-957-4838.
Jeff: Bjorn?
Bjorn: Yeah, I guess my pitch is that, you know, kind of what we’ve been saying all through here, there’s going to be some big changes. We know there is going to be a federal pushed ramp up timber production. I think as, you know, hunters, anglers, locals, we just got to do our best to make sure that we can kind of guide that in the direction it needs to go, which is young growth. That focus needs to be on young growth and if we can do it in a way that restores. Habitat which there’s been a lot of a lot of good folks working on that you know studies and mapping to restore clear cuts that have regenerated to the point where they’re about to enter stomach exclusion that’s where you know all the light gets blocked out and it’s kind of a no you know very little to no understory for deer to eat. But yeah, we need to, you know, if we can do restoration, logging to benefit locals, and, you know, the American economy while enhancing deer habitat is the dream. You know, maybe that’s the dream right there. So I think that’s my pitch for the Tongass is let’s all be very vigilant. And let’s have, you know, a timber industry that focuses on ways to make, make, make the forest better versus ways to make the forest worse.
Jeff: Mary?
Mary: Yeah, everything Bjorn said. And if you want to learn more about how to engage, I’m going to have some email communications from my Alaska folks coming out soon. And we are on social media, Alaska underscore BHA on Instagram. If you go to backcountryhunters.org backslash Alaska, you can find all the Alaska things, including events and signing up for that email list. So even if you’re not a member if you’re not into being a member of things or if you can’t afford to be a member right now you can still sign up to learn about what’s going on and participate in other ways and like I said you know there is always that frustration where you’re like well I’ve commented before and it seems like outside forces make the decisions anyway you know every every non-profit kind of has folks in in dc doing that legislative. Education and you know that’s what we’re here for and so if you if you’re looking for a way to try to make your voice heard more get involved or you know just put the comment in again alter your comment update your comment put it in it’s it goes into citing how many people said they want this how many people said they want that and those numbers you know while they don’t seem instantaneously important they do become important
Jeff: Cool well thanks again appreciate appreciate your time and have hopefully a snow free not a not a break hopefully it’s over you can start melting a little bit and start enjoy some outdoor activities this spring
Guests: Thanks I hope so thanks jeff appreciate you having us thanks jeff.
