Today's guest is navigating Alaska's forgotten frontier, guiding fly anglers through the wild streams of the Tongass National Forest.

Chasing steelhead where log jams outnumber anglers, and swinging flies in rivers is where you might be the only one for miles.

By the end of this episode, you'll know how to target C-run cutthroat on top water, what it takes to access remote steelhead streams from a mothership, and why this Tequine River float might be one of the most underrated trips in the state. This is the wetfly swing podcast where I show the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip and what you can do

to give back the fish species we all love. Kevin Mayne of Tongass on the fly breaks down the rhythms

of southeast Alaska. Why fly patterns matter more than stream miles this time of year,

how tides and tides alone can dictate your entire day and what it means to chase fish in America's

largest national forests. From Popper eating cutties to glacial tributaries filled with dollies and

salmon, we're heading deep into the rainforest. Here he is. Kevin Mayn, you can find him at

Tongass on thefly.com. How you doing, Kevin? I'm doing well, Dave. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, yeah. This is, I'm really excited about this episode because we're always, you know, Alaska is one of those places that we definitely have talked a lot about, but it's always, you know, finding new places in Alaska, I think is always interesting. And the Tongass is something, you know, I've heard about. I actually don't know much about it. So today you're going to explain that, what the, you know, the resources like where you kind of work and, you know, your trips and things like that. So we're going to get into all that today. But first take us back. Maybe let's just start today. It's kind of time wise, I guess we're in kind of June now. What's it like? What's the Tongass like

and how are you

doing out there this time of year? Yeah. Well, that's a tough question because right now, it feels

more like October than June. We're still having a lot of rain. It doesn't feel like really

spring or summers kind of started for us yet. But

that is abnormal. We've had after a really mild winter, we've had more rain in April and May than

we've ever had on records here in southeast Alaska. So typically May and June, we are in a

rainforest. So it's always a little bit wetter than

a lot of places.

But yeah, I think we're excited to get in the summer and hopefully some more sunshine and mild

weather.

So that's, yeah, I'm looking outside and just waiting for the skies to clear.

So you guys get plenty of rain down there. Are you getting, what, like a hundred inches of rain or more per year?

You know, we're probably around there. Yeah, I think. So we're located in Petersburg, Alaska. And I guess we can kind of zoom out a little bit and just explain where the Tongass is.

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