Scratching the Fishing Travel Itch With Yellow Dog’s Encyclopedic Jim Klug

All photos courtesy of Jim Klug

As Hanna and I started to conceive this website, we realized that there are not a huge number of reliable resources for fishing travel information. There are lots of people willing to sell you a trip, but few have really considered the details beyond that point. Either they’re looking to push you towards the one product they have available, or else they’re not experts on the ins and outs of each particularly property.

In the conventional tackle sphere there aren’t many great websites or libraries, but the fly fishing operators tend to do it better, and we quickly discovered that Yellow Dog Flyfishing Adventures was at the top of the heap. They have regional experts, loads of articles and advisory materials, and their emailers were always good—but especially useful during the pandemic.  

I’d planned to keep following them, but while running a camera boat for MeatEater I met Bryan Gregson, who works for Yellow Dog (as well as other entities including Patagonia, Volvo, Scott Fly Rods, Trout Unlimited) as a photographer. I probably bugged him with too many questions about all the places he’s traveled, but he graciously agreed to set up an interview with Yellow Dog founder Jim Klug. As a budding fishing travel geek, it was exciting to get to ask whatever I wanted of someone at the apex of the industry. Furthermore, Klug is a model of what a fishing industry polymath can and should be: In addition to the travel business, he’s a world-renowned photographer, filmmaker, philanthropist, award winner, and member of numerous boards dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the sport and its underlying resources. Here’s our exchange: 

HPFC: Were you raised in a family of traveling anglers? If not, what attracted you to the industry and lifestyle?

KLUG: I really wasn’t raised in a fishing family or a traveling family, per se. I was raised in central Oregon and grew up learning to fish on my own. I had a grandfather and I would spend time in the summer with him. He’s the one who developed a love of fishing at an early age, but most of my fishing growing up in Oregon was either on my own or with friends. I really kind of found my own way to fly fishing, ended up working in a fly shop at a young age, when I was about 14 or 15. That took me down that path forever. When I was older and in college I worked as an apprentice guide for a steelhead outfitter out on the Deschutes who really was a mentor. He taught me about rowing whitewater and fishing and the ethics of the sport, and how to get into it the right way. Of course at 18 you’re like, “Oh, I’m ready to guide.” He said I wasn’t ready to guide, but he would teach me how to be a guide. In retrospect it was such a great education and I’m appreciative for his mentorship every day. That kind of sent me down the path in this industry of a lot of years guiding. Then I became a sales rep, and as I stayed in the industry it opened up more opportunities to get into saltwater fishing and travel beyond the U.S. domestic destinations. I spent a lot of time in the Bahamas and Belize and it opened my eyes up not just to the places that fly fishing can take you, but to the adventure that the sport offers. I was just immediately hooked on that. The rest is history—that was a bunch of years ago.

HPFC: How do you then transfer from living your dreams and your adventures to helping people figure out their passions and the places that they want to go?

KLUG: There’s no doubt that when you take something that you really love and you decide to make it your occupation, it’s going to change the very nature of it. Not necessarily for better or for worse—it just changes it. We’re now 22 years in from when we started off as a one man and one dog operation. As of this week I think we have 249 destinations in 29 different countries. It takes me to amazing places. I’ve been to almost all of them. I’ve gotten a chance to go fishing and really learn what it is that we’re selling. It has been incredibly rewarding, there’s no doubt about it. When I started the company I was a one-man operation and 20 years ago there were some really big boys in this industry. There were some that had been at it for years and were really titans in world travel. When I had a buddy that said, “You’re sending a lot of people down to Belize. People are contacting you for information. You really ought to think about making this official and becoming a booking agent.” I thought, zero chance. There’s way too many big companies and no way I’d ever get my foot in the door and I’m never going to compete against these guys. But then, like anything, I took a hard look at what did exist out there and how people were doing business and what they were offering and I thought there were actually great opportunities to promote at a little different level. I grew up with a father who was in the resort and hotel business. He was Mr. Customer Service, the greatest personality, so good at everything he does. He just retired this year from 50 years in that business. I learned so much from him about customer service, about how to take care of people and deliver the full customer experience. When I started Yellow Dog, that’s where I focused and we started small. The first couple of years all I did was sell a handful of destinations in Belize. From there we added a couple of places in the Bahamas and the Yucatan and then eventually evolved from saltwater to some other international destinations. It was always with that commitment to delivering that exceptional customer experience. As we’ve grown, went from a one man, one dog operation to 30 employees 22 years later we’ve really tried to maintain our focus on that. So if we get someone who comes our way who hasn’t worked with us before, our goal is to really show them how we do things differently and how we can be a resource to them. It’s not just booking a trip and sending them somewhere but researching and planning and figuring out what the best fit is going to be for their next adventure. So far it’s worked well.

HPFC: There’s so much information on your website. It’s been a tremendous rabbit hole for me. When someone comes to you and starts off with information overload, how to you help them determine the right trip or even steer them away from the wrong trip?

KLUG: The second part of your question is super-important. The website is a tricky deal. We feel it’s a great resource with a lot of information and tons of photos. I run into people all the time who say, “We love your website. We use it all the time. We haven’t traveled with you yet but it’s a great resource. We do sometimes wonder if we’re giving away too much on the website, the keys to the kingdom. We try to put it out there so we show people that we have that information accessible. Our hope is that they will work with us so that they can use that information and take it forward. We sometimes get people who will call up and say, “I want to go to this lodge in this country. My friend went down there and told me all of the permit are stupid, I’ll catch 20 of them. It’s the easiest place in the world.” I say, “That’s super-interesting, but let’s talk about the realities of the fishery and figure out what’s right for you.” We tend to spend a lot of time asking people questions—where they fish, what there expectations are, with the whole goal being that at the end of that process we can then make the recommendations that will be the right fit for them.

HPFC: What about people like myself, who are in the world of conventional gear and are looking for a non-fly fishing trip. Do you cater to them as well or do you outsource that sort of inquiry?

KLUG: We definitely do and we’ve started to do a lot more of that over the years. It really depends on the destination, because some fisheries in Bristol Bay or the Seychelles for example, they are fly-fishing only, but there are a lot of other destinations—Bahamas, Belize, South America—where conventional fishing is absolutely a possibility. We get a lot of people who might want to do both, or maybe it’s a mixed group, like a family of eight and half of them are fly fishing and half of them haven’t tried fly fishing yet. They may want to try it, but they also want to show up and have fun with conventional gear and catch fish, so we do cater to both. We’ve done more and more of that over the years.

HPFC: I had two really good early fly fishing experiences, first on the Bitterroot and then in Bristol Bay. For someone who might want to try out fly fishing for the first time, what are the places you’d recommend as a gateway, and conversely, what’s a bad starting point?

KLUG: So much of it is just about figuring out the expectations and then lining people up with the right place. They’re realistically being set up for success. You nailed it with Bristol Bay. It is a great place to go if you have never held a fly rod. That’s not to say you might not get more out of it or land bigger fish if you do have a little bit of experience, but I’ve taken both of my boys, starting when they were 6 years old, up to Bristol Bay. At 6 or 7 years old they were going out and catching fish because that’s what those lodges are so good at delivering, whereas I’m probably not going to take a young kid permit fishing or steelhead fishing on the fly and expect them to have success straight out of the gates and enjoy it. It’s about matching people with the right destinations so that they can learn and get better at it. It’s not just about the right destination—it’s about the right guide or guides that are good at teaching. All of those key ingredients that will set someone up for success, so someone will say they’re really glad they picked up a fly rod. “I’m really hooked. Where to next?”

HPFC: Having spent 40 years in the conventional gear world, the longer I did it the more I was afraid to pick up a fly rod and look like an idiot. Then I tried it, and I may have looked like an idiot at times, but it was amazing to get that new experience and that new high. The fly-outs in Bristol Bay were absolutely thrilling.

KLUG: For somebody who’s spent that many years as a competent fisherman, it makes it even better, because it adds a whole new dimension to your overall angling game. I feel the same way. I grew up fly fishing. When I was a kid I fished conventional but then didn’t do it for 30 years. When I had kids of my own and wanted to start them out, I didn’t start them out with a 5-weight fly rod. We went down, we got some gear, some bobbers and some spinners, and we went to the lakes around Bozeman, and I tried to make it fun. You know, you’ve got to catch fish and make it enjoyable. I was terrible at it, so I had to relearn a lot of that stuff and diversify my angling skills and it’s been great.

I took a pro bass angler down to Cuba several years ago because I really wanted to explore the Cuban bass fisheries. There was a time in the fifties when they were incredibly famous. I wanted to go down and spend a couple of weeks on these big lakes and reservoirs down there and see what they hd. I brought a couple of fly fishing buddies, but I also wanted to bring somebody down there who could absolutely dissect a bass fishery with gear and all the techniques that make conventional bass anglers so good at what they do. I learned more on that trip than I ever had before about angling techniques and fish behavior. It was amazing.

HPFC: From all of the places you’ve been, and it sounds like there aren’t many places you haven’t been, are there particular places or species that are especially meaningful to you?

KLUG: For sure. I always say my favorite trip is the trip I just came back from. I couldn’t pick one or two, I could maybe pick a top five. I love the Seychelles, I love that whole flats fishing environment over there. That part of the Indian Ocean is just incredible. I love the big rainbows in Alaska and Kamchatka. I’m really pretty addicted to permit fishing, so anyplace there’s permit I’m always game to go down and chase those maddening fish around. Bolivia for Golden Dorado. I mean, there are so many incredible places, there’s honestly no wrong answers in this sport. I always tell people that all of these fish that we pursue, regardless of whether it’s on a fly or wherever you go after them, they tend to live in beautiful places, so most of the trips are going to end well regardless of what the fishing does

HPFC: Are there still places on your bucket list that you have yet to fish for one reason or another?

KLUG: Thankfully the list is getting shorter all of the time. I still haven’t fished Australia. The saltwater and the freshwater fishing down there are so incredibly diverse, so that’s on my list for sure. There’s some more stuff over in Africa, some of the Goliath Tigerfish fisheries in the Central African Republic, some of the big tarpon fisheries on the west coast of Africa, those are definitely on my bucket list as well.

HPFC: Obviously a lot has changed in travel over the past handful of years due to the internet, and in the last year in particular due to the pandemic. How has travel changed and what’s the future?

KLUG: I would say two things. One, the world has gotten smaller. Ten years ago when someone was planning a trip to Belize that was a big deal. It was exotic and it was far away, so people would start off maybe a year in advance planning it. It was a pretty exciting adventure. Now I’ll get a call on a Wednesday and someone asks if we have any space for this Friday in Belize. It’s just gotten smaller. The world has shrunk. Part of that has to do with our industry and how it opens places. I won’t say they’ve become less exotic or more routine but they’ve certainly become more accessible to the average angler. You see so much out there about these destinations, so what seemed surreal or out of reach has become almost standard. We have this whole group of clients who want the most adventurous thing. If there’s a new fishery in Africa or there’s island that it takes you four days by boat to get to in the Indian Ocean, people who are looking for that type of stuff. And the other big change we’ve seen is that more people are comfortable going to a lot of these international destinations than they were 10 years ago. It’s easier to get there, the infrastructure of places has gotten way better. The lodges are better and the guides are better, they’ve really upped their game. It’s become a lot more last minute. Again, people use to plan one or two years out to do a saltwater trip and now people will call for something next week.

HPFC: What else should someone considering calling Yellow Dog today or tomorrow or next week to book a trip know about your operation?

KLUG: It gets back to that focus on service. We have an incredible team here. That’s the reason we’ve been successful as a company. We hire people from within the industry who have a pretty deep background in fishing, whether they’ve managed lodges or worked overseas in these countries. Most of our employees have guided for an extended period of time, so they really understand the industry, they understand the technical aspects of fishing, they understand the species that we’re matching people up with. The knowledge base that we have on this team is something that I’m really humbled by on a daily basis. I think that’s one of the things that really does set us apart. I’m proud to get to work with this group of people every day.