TREVOR COVICH

Okay Mr. Covich…There has been quite the talk about your insane diversity of guiding experiences and dedication to the sport. Let's get to know you a little more and try to pry into some of your work life as well as your personal life! So when you're not on the river guiding or fishing, where do you call home? Where are you originally from? - I'm fairly nomadic, living out of the same large orange Simms dry bag that I've been using since my friend Cam Miller gave me when I was 18. Like most salmon and steelhead guides I go where the fish are. I live on the Olympic Peninsula in the winter and summers are spent in Alaska, this has changed over the seasons. I live in a small place at the mouth of a river that spills into the Straight of Juan De Fuca, watching the tide roll in and out while drinking coffee and looking at Vancouver Island. I was raised in Issaquah Washington.

When was your first year guiding? (details) - I was a camp hand at Alaska West sport fishing on the Kanektok in 2004, I did it for a couple seasons. I did jobs that would make a lot of people cringe, however I got to fish everyday supplying the chef with fish and learning the river. I felt I was as good as most of the guides. The company asked me if I would like to guide in 2006. I remember this day very well, the season had started and nobody had landed a king yet for a couple days. I was finishing up the trim on the shower house at camp when my boss Rick Sisler came up to me and said a client was flying in and that I had to take him fishing for a couple hours. So I took off my tool belt and met one of my first clients Dick Mattox. We headed out half way through the day and as I drove down wondering where I would start. I noticed a slough we called "Cuda Jacks" was open and nobody in sight, I was in shock. We pulled in and I waded him down the slough casting a 10wt single hand rod and a dry line with a chartreuse and white fly. The hooligan "a small bait fish" we're thick and often got in the way. Then it happened a chrome chinook smacked his fly we landed it and another so we went back to camp early. Not gonna

lie I felt like a bad ass! That was the moment I knew guiding was for me, I knew the river and excelled. What does a typical guide season look like for you now? - A typical guide season now....... I usually say my goodbyes and head to Alaska in late May. I guide clients swinging flies for Chinook salmon till mid July, I then go to a different lodge to guide for Coho salmon all August and most of September finishing my season by putting people on far north steelhead till the end of October. It's a long season with a rare day off. I will fly home to Washington where I spend November swinging for steelhead for myself usually in BC and eastern Washington. December is spent putting hatchery steelhead in my freezer usually on the OP (Olympic Peninsula). January is spent on the Skagit River chasing Wild fish transitioning back out to the OP to guide for steelhead till mid April. Late April or May is spent teaching casting and tying instruction at spey claves and fly shops. Harassing eastern Washington trout and halibut out of Neah Bay is mixed in there....... Then back to Alaska.

What inspires you to guide and come back every year? Do you ever get bored or fishing or guiding? - What inspires me to guide? I think most guides want ever changing scenery. Traveling to the corners of the globe where the pavement hasn't reached watching nature do its thing since the beginning, its what I've always longed for. Out there I can be a wild man, hunting big chrome fish right out of the ocean. I have never needed to go to a zoo to see bears, wolves, moose, and elk. I view them in their natural state, I walk among them. I drive a fast jet boat to

work sliding corners and navigating skinny water, I drive a rally track every day to work..... 0 traffic. Unlocking the secrets of the river is always on my mind, always learning and changing with river conditions. Teaching and watching my clients evolve and have success is the greatest feeling, putting a client on their first steelhead is the best by far. I always tell them the only way out now is death hahaa. Never bored, I will quit the day I lose my love for this sport.

So, is there an after guiding drink of choice? - After guiding drink of choice? That changes with the seasons as well Alaska- R&R whisky, guide juice in tent camps all over Bahamas- Cold Kalik beer Chile- Pisco sour (Chilean margarita) Forks WA - Rainier beer, vitamin R. What is your favorite species to fish for and why? - My favorite species is a tug of war between steelhead and chinook. I have manicured my entire life around these fish. Chinook may be my favorite! My Super Bowl, as the season is short, setting up on a tide exchange watching the largest meanest fish I chase roll in with the tide gets my full attention and blood pumping. Packs of purple backed, evil eyed Chinook slow roll or explode in from the ocean, I hear them before I see them sometimes. I get to tie flies that look like giant king plugs and watch a deep pull turn into a test of drag and will from the fish and my clients. These fish can humble the best fisherman.

What are some of your hobbies besides fishing? (Hiking, Hunting, Sports games, snowmobiling, collecting memorabilia etc.) (details) - Hobbies besides fishing. I used to play a lot of rugby. It was like a second job. I started playing rugby when my high school linebacker coach recruited me to his team. I craved contact especially on the defensive side. I captained the Liberty Patriots RFC my senior year then moving on to the Valley men's club in Seattle. When I was 21 my team sent me to try out for a team in northern Scotland. I trained and lifted for 2 months then hopped on a plane not knowing a soul to try out. I made the team after a few big hits on players that gave me little respect

as I was an American and didn't believe we could play. They didn't factor in that I was an outside linebacker who had older brothers. As a yank I played with a huge chip on my shoulder. I made the team and it was maybe the craziest year of my life. I lived there, played rugby and was a bartender at night though I only stayed till I went back to AK. I quit playing at 26. I still think about it. Who do you owe most of your fishing credit to? Who showed you the ropes when first started out? How did you start out fly fishing? - My father Rick and uncle Jon Covich had my brother and I fishing since we could walk. Both gear and fly fishing my bro and I were versed in most northwest species. I used to sit on my father’s float tube at the lake while he let me reel in trout, lots of salt water fishing as well for salmon and rockfish. My uncle Jon would take my bro and I on summer trips to the St. Joe river in Idaho, smallmouth bass on the John Day river in Oregon, or the Missouri River in Montana plus many others. I believe my bro and I rowed every rapid on the trout creek to Maupin stretch of the Deschutes at 12 years old in 9ft pontoon boats. Catching red sides and rowing rapids, we had to as we were taught young. White horse rapid still makes my ass pucker to the size of a decimal point. I used to talk my father into driving me to the coast to chase steelhead, I would hitchhike up logging roads on logging trucks, fish all day catching wild steelhead, then get a ride out when the loggers went home. There have been many influences but my father and uncle deserve all the blame for my love of fishing.

Tell us a little bit about your past/present/future in the fishing industry: - As far as my past, I started at Alaska west on the Kanektok River AK for 9 seasons. Deneki outdoors then offered me a guide job for trout and a shot at king salmon exploration in winter in southern Chile working for my boss Chris price. I was a swamper for Speywater Lodge on the Grande Ronde working for Scott O’donell, Ed Ward, and Mike McCune setting up steelhead camps in fall. Springs were spent hosting at Andros south bone fishing lodge. I did this circuit for seasons. I missed steelhead and the rain though. Now I work in the Aleutians in Alaska for a great lodge. I went from being a steelhead bum to building a swing only business for steelhead in Forks Washington and the Skagit from the ground up. I do promotional events for OPST (Olympic Peninsula Skagit Tactics) and Einarsson Reels as well. Future, I hope to retain a thriving guide business while representing great companies and developing innovative flies on a production level. I will be in this industry for a long time. I believe fishing is in my blood. What's your most memorable/embarrassing fishing experience or guide trip? (Give us your all time worst!) - My most epic guide fail ever? Last year we experienced 3 weeks without rain in Forks, fishing sucked at the time. I was meeting my clients for the day at 6am in a large parking lot. There was a heavy

mist that morning which saturated the ground. As I waited for my clients I poured a cup of coffee, my clients arrived pulling around the passenger side of my truck. I got out and opened the main door and suicide door on my f-150. With a full cup of coffee in my left hand I went and grabbed my clients’ bags from them and walked to the truck. As I walked around the open doors I slipped on a oil slick which just felt moisture for the first time in weeks. My head hit the suicide door on the truck then the pavement, I was knocked out for a few seconds. I regained consciousness to find my clients standing over me and a half a cup of coffee still in the ceramic cup on my chest. I still did the guide day but wasn't myself till about noon. I was embarrassed but I'm human and I make mistakes, we all do.

What's been one of the most terrifying experiences on the water? (fishing or guiding) Any close calls? - The most terrifying thing I've experienced is this little thing called guide training. You are training somebody to drive a jet boat who hasn't ever before, I now know how driving instructors feel as a 16 year old kid is merging onto the freeway during drivers ED. I've had 2 people drive the boat directly into a high bank after turning the tiller handle the wrong way a woman and a man that wanted to be guides. On one occasion I remember the driver being ejected as I hit the bow of the boat, the boat slid back into the water and almost sunk. I pulled the man in and we floated to safety. Our boat was full of water in spring Alaskan water conditions. Favorite fishing book? - Favorite book was probably by Bill Herzog, I started fishing for steelhead on gear. This guy, reading his stuff taught me a lot about rigging for steelhead. Favorite Fishing video? - Favorite video was probably the Lani Waller introduction to steelhead that I got for Christmas as a kid. I caught my first steelhead on accident while sea run cutthroat fishing.

3 things that nobody knows about you: 1.) I still love pulling plugs (gear fishing) I can still feel the tug of a fish like swinging a fly. My dirty secret, unfortunately I've done none of it for a while. 2.) I travel every time I get time off, I'm trying to fish every steelhead stream I can before I die!! 3.) Freshly single, I just got out of a long relationship. Looking for a fishing chick.

Best dumb client quote EVER: (i.e. How deep is the river?) (details please) - Most annoying client phrase and the most common is "Are we taking the boat out where we put in" I nicely explain that it's physically impossible unless the river runs in a circle plus I explain the shuttle program. Don't be that guy! In Alaska folks would ask me who landscapes the river bank since we had trails and cut trees. I had to explain we had bears and beavers. https://youtu.be/3qyjI1auGIo HOW TO CATCH SILVER SALMON https://youtu.be/6-RujwmAVp4 HOW TO TIE TREVOR’S SQUID https://youtu.be/HTTI12WVLWU HOW TO TIE AN INTRUDER https://youtu.be/AUQFVNPJXvU HOW TO TIE TREVOR’S SCULPIN