The following organizations have provided funding for this Into the The Outdoors television series.

(Music) Ask anyone from the ages of 8 to 88 what's one of their best memories?

And you'll likely get similar answers.

It's fishing with family or friends, and maybe it's about catching their first fish when they were just a kid.

Is that weird or what?

No, not really.

Why?

Because fishing with family or friends combines the ideal mix of senses and emotions that make for memories that can last a lifetime.

Outdoor adventure, fishing, excitement, water sharing.

Nature with family or friends.

Yep.

It's the perfect combination for making cherished memories.

And what could possibly make that ideal blend even better.

How about fishing in America's last frontier in the vast wilderness of Alaska's national forests?

Let's join in a memory making adventure there as we head far north into the outdoors.

(music) What do you think of when you hear the word Alaska?

Rugged beauty, vast wilderness, cool wildlife, mountain ranges that stretch forever.

Well, if you've ever tried fishing, you should definitely think of the incredible fishing in Alaska, whether it's the bounty and variety of what you can catch in the ocean there, or in almost endless possibilities on the thousands of rivers, streams, lakes and ponds, fishing in America's last frontier can be an adventure that combines all the ingredients into one memory making package.

Especially on your national forests there.

Alaska has two national forests, the Chugach National Forest and the Biggy, the Tongass National Forest, which is the largest national forest in the entire United States.

How big?

The Tongass National Forest covers most of southeast Alaska at just under 17 million acres.

That's around the size of the state of West Virginia.

Making it the biggest national forest in the nation.

It's also home to our planet's biggest temperate rainforest.

This wild area offers home to wolves, eagles, moose, black bears.

And yes, those huge brown, furry things with teeth and claws.

Brown bears.

And why do the brown bears get so big there?

It's because they know how to catch salmon in the rivers there.

Now you'd probably think that our national forests are managed for well.

The forest, you know, the trees, right.

But in reality, the U.S. Forest Service manages your forests for the health of the entire ecosystem there.

That's why their staff includes fish biologists who help manage the forest waters and the fish habitat there as part of the greater ecosystem.

So I came up here on the Tongass National Forest because I've always wanted to see Alaska, especially as a little kid, and come up here.

And then once I did, I became hooked.

Like, the mountains are big.

The fish are big.

You look at them, you're like, I want to be a fish bio.

I want to learn more about these guys and and study them and help protect their habitat.

And that's when I went back to school and became a fisheries biologist and started working for the Tongass National Forest.

It's just an incredible place to live and work.

So the Forest Service loves our salmon habitat.

So a really cool program that we have is our aquatic organism passage.

So anytime a stream crosses a road, we have to put a culvert down.

And there's about 3500 fish culverts on the Tongass National Forest that we maintain and monitor.

And sometimes we have to replace them because they can fragment the stream habitat.

We also have a cool Fish Pass program where we bridge natural barriers and give access to upstream salmon habitat.

Because of that program, we've increased salmon rearing and access to about 5.6 miles of upstream habitat and about 5000 acres.

And then lastly, we have a really fun restoration program where most of our watersheds here on the Tongass are operating at near pristine condition.

But there's a couple that are not.

And we'll go in there and we'll use treatment.

We'll add wood or obliterate redwoods that are in the stream banks and things like that to help treat it to get it to that pristine condition.

So salmon are so cool because they are born in freshwater and then they go out to the ocean for the majority of their life, but they come back to spawn and then dive into freshwater.

So it's a pretty remarkable life cycle.

Adaptation.

The other cool thing I love about salmon is their colors.

They come in stripes and polka dots and like purples and reds and greens.

And they're not just silver like, you see, but they're all different colors.

And you start to look at them.

My top secrets for catching salmon is knowing what species you're targeting, because timing is really important.

They come back at different times like Chinook salmon or king salmon can come back first in May, and then you can get them as is like October for those fall coho.

So knowing which species they're going after is really important.

So my advice for coming up here to fish.

Would you know what fish you're targeting?

And just keep in mind that timing.

So things coming first calls come as late as October or if you're going to go freshwater fishing and target some trout or if you're going to go ocean fishing and target salmon and halibut.

So just having some kind of game plan of what you want to target when you come up here.

What makes a Tongass so fun for angling families is salmon.

I mean, you can't beat catching a salmon.

They're just like this giant, beautiful fish that's full of yummy things that will feed your body.

And they're just such a just a treat to catch.

Oh, fishing is really fun for families because you get to go out there and these like harsh, sometimes undesirable conditions.

But you're working together and you're going to catch some fish and put some work on and you're all doing it together and making these great memories.

And then you go home and he gets a process, these fish together and like put it up for later.

So you relive those memories as well and then share them with friends and family.

With those Forest Service habitat programs.

It sounds like the Tongass can be really nicknamed the America's Salmon Forest.

When we returned to the Tongass National Forest.

We'll join one of those family fishing adventures in Alaska.

With three generations of family anglers.

Let's head back into Alaska's Tongass National Forest and join a young angler with his mentor father and grandfather to test their luck and skill on what the forests waters have to offer.

The forest that surrounds us here in southeast Alaska is very dependent on salmon and not all that to take them out of the food chain.

The bears won't have food.

The Eagles won't have food, the trees will not have food.

And everything around us is all green because of rain and fish.

(music) So today we're chasing cutthroat trout, coastal cutthroat.

Some rainbow trout and some silver salmon.

I mean, the four species, they're all very strong part of a healthy ecosystem.

And without any one of those ones missing out of the ecosystem and the food chain, a lot of the stuff around us wouldn't be.

The system kind of varies.

It has a lake in the stream system.

And then as it comes down to the, uh, towards the ocean, there's this really slow area.

So the water has a lot of tannins in it and stuff.

The slow water provides a lot of food for trout in addition to when the salmon aren't here.

So you got a lot insect life.

It's a very complete ecosystem, just kind of a free flowing system.

And the salmon have free rein of it.

That's a very healthy system.

We got another one.

That's a big one.

Oh, oh, oh.

Big, isn't it?

Oh, watch out.

Family fishing.

It was a tradition passed down from my father down to me, and it's been in our families forever.

Being taught by my father was one of the most utmost important things for me growing up.

That's all I ever dreamed about, was fishing, fishing, fishing.

I started family fishing with Oliver probably when he was two or three.

Basically, you know, we started out with conventional gear, push buttons, Snoopy rod type stuff, and we started taking them out in the boat as a toddler and he just picked up on fishing from the start and just can't stop.

My greatest memory about fly fishing is when I caught my first king salmon on the fly.

It's fun to catch a king salmon because they fight really hard.

It was like cards, a one ill move, the reel one taking mine.

So you had to find the reel again.

Then you start reeling again when it calms down and then you start to align again and then you got it.

I almost got in.

So it was like making waves.

And then I got it in.

(music) Just over, just a little more out towards the bottom of that log.

(splashing) (splashing) What they're calling a cutty is actually a cutthroat trout, a species that's also common in some of our western mountain and coastal states.

All right, here we go.

Oh.

Oh.

What are you doing?

Fishing makes me feel like I'm.

I'm super excited when I go out fishing.

When I'm fishing, I'm always thinking I want to catch a fish because it's fun to catch them.

Dang, thats a big one.

Stay with us for more family fishing adventure in the wilds of Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

(Music) Now let's get back to that family fishing in Alaska.

Of the things that make families fishing special.

It really it's the time together really good quality time outdoors away from technology and screens and all that stuff.

Just enjoying life as simple as can be.

Family values that is installed through fishing.

There's a teacher mentor aspect to it.

You're constantly enjoying what you know.

There's there's a lot of trust that goes into fishing.

When I'm waiting out into a stream with my son, he's trusting me to get him into an area and out of that area safely.

So you got trust.

Family fishing for us is not myself, my kids and my spouse, but my father in law and my brother in laws.

We all love to fish together and it can be anywhere from fly fishing like what we're doing now to tackle fishing for salmon and stuff in saltwater.

It doesn't matter.

It's all a lot of fun.

Last year.

Lasting rewards of fishing with the family.

It's just the memories.

The laughter, the camaraderie.

Try not to ever say it, but it's quality time, family time.

And they always say, you know, there's never a bad day of fishing.

There's just a bad day of catching.

Right when it hit the water it bit me.

I guess we're back in the water on Orange Leech.

Near Orange Leech.

With Oliver where I knew he was just absolutely had the bug was he was four years old and we were fishing out of my boat.

We're fly fishing for silver salmon and I had just landed one.

I set my rod down on the boat sitting there on the side and the fly was sitting there.

And as I'm dealing with the salmon, you know, we're keeping it.

I just you fly flip out of the boat and hit the water and he's standing there and next thing I know, he has a fish on.

He just looked at me and just started just screaming.

And I just knew right then and there that that was probably one of the most precious moments.

Here in Alaska, we deal with the big salmon runs, so we get to see the life cycle from beginning to end.

So it's really neat to share with the family.

Though it's true that Salmon plays a key role in Alaska's food web, lets decode the aquatic science of the largest part.

Ever wonder why a salmon fillet is orange compared to the white flesh of the bass or walleye?

The old saying you are what you eat holds true in aquatic ecosystems.

And salmon filets get their color from something called a krill.

Krill are these tiny orange shrimp about the size of a paperclip.

They eat ocean plankton despite being real shrimpy Shrimp.

They more than make up for that in numbers and are the largest biomass and food source in the ocean.

So there are huge part of the base of the food pyramid there and all kinds of sea life eat krill from 40 ton whales.

Too four ounce baby salmon.

Other small baitfish eat krill, too.

That in turn are aimed by bigger salmon, which in turn are consumed by all kinds of birds and mammals from humans to eagles, foxes, black bears, and of course, those huge brown bears that live near the coastal waters there.

Now let's get back to fishing in the Tongass Food Web.

Wow, Grandpa, come over here.

It's a pretty dolly.

What they're calling a dolly is the dolly Varden, though it's easily mistaken for and looks similar to a trout.

The dolly is a member of the Char family.

Because the Tongass National Forest sits along the coastal temperate rainforest in Alaska.

It rains often there.

Pretty sure that's why they call it a rain forest.

So besides your rod and reel, be sure to pack your best rain gear when planning to fish in Alaska.

Unlike some methods of fishing, whipping the line back and forth in fly fishing can at times create more than your share of tangled lines.

One thing for sure, it builds patience.

In fact, the whole process of passing on the family tradition of fishing requires lots of patience over time.

They're tangled.

Got to be patient with them.

And that's, I think, the most important part of caring this aspect is showing patience.

So that way they can try to learn and enjoy and have fun.

(Music) When Oliver wets both hands, before attempting to handle the fish, it's to help protect its skin.

Do you wonder why they're netting those trout with the soft rubber mesh net?

Similar to wetting their hands wetting the soft net helps protect the skin of the thrashing fish.

It's just one part of being a responsible and ethical angler.

Don't go anywhere.

Stay with us for more.

Family fishing adventure in the wilds of Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

Despite some of the challenges of fly fishing in the rain with trees and brush snagging your line, it's ironically those challenges that can offer greater personal rewards.

Fly fishing for a lot of people, including myself, is a little more of an intimate way of fishing.

You don't really have all the advantages of gears and whatnot, and you realize you're fighting a fish.

It's pretty much you against the fish with the rod more interactive rather than just kind of reeling and stuff.

You know, you're doing everything by hand and playing the fish and.

A lot of times, too, is for a lot of people a harder way of fishing.

And so the challenge was what they really like.

But for me, it's this it's been my way of life ever since I was a little kid.

What I like about fly fishing is there's a lot of challenging parts when you have to learn like one.

You had to learn how to cast.

You can get on it or hit the ground when you first time.

Like sometimes you hit the ground with your fly rod.

Sometimes you hit the ground with like on the line.

It'll break the line.

What's so fun about fly fishing is that if if it's really good, I'm fishing time and a really close by and it's super hard to catch fish.

Sometimes you can get lucky and catch fish.

That's what's fun about it.

And now for a short history lesson.

Fly fishing is one of the oldest documented techniques of catching a fish that can be traced back to Roman history about 2000 years ago.

Japan, Scotland and various European countries also adopted fly fishing over the ages.

And How to fly fishing books appeared back in the 1600s, including the Complete Angler written by Isaac Walton in 1653.

Besides putting fish in the frying pans of commoners, fly fishing even became popular among royalty, including King George the Fourth.

Things really took off for fly fishing here in America when Charles F Orvis designed and began selling a novel fly fishing reel and Fly Designs in 1874.

There you have it.

Now, let's see what fishing history Oliver and his dad are making on the streams in the Tongass National Forest.

Oh, that's a big there's a big, big fish in a very big fish.

This morning, we found that there was still some spawning salmon upstream and the trout up there were coming in on the salmon eggs.

And so we were fishing in little plastic beads to mimic the egg.

And in doing so, caught a lot of fish.

The beed technique worked a lot, a lot, a lot.

My dad told me to go on casting first, but there was a bunch of trout out there.

So then my dad told me to cast like at that log sticking out.

Now, I caught a bunch of them, one like 16 inch rainbow I caught, like in a deep, really deep hole.

This morning I was helping Oliver learn how to drift a beed to make it look realistic in the presentation.

So an egg when it's free floating in a river is bouncing along the bottom.

And we try to mimic that with technique by drifting the fly or the bead along the bottom, using a little bit of weight and just trying to manage it so that it's rolling naturally down the bottom.

A lot of times, basically.

Especially bigger fish.

If they see something coming at them and it doesn't quite look right, you know, they won't eat it.

So trying to get that the best presentation possible.

Accordingly.

And so that's what we were working on this morning, trying to get a good drift on the beam.

Now that you've seen how it's done, if you're considering trying some family fishing or maybe even learning about fly fishing.

Mike offers us some advice on pathways to participation.

This is probably one of the easiest ways to discover a little bit more.

Fishing is just inquiring about it at your local tackle shop or shop and good shops will always help you out and try to help you catch some fish in their day out.

Enjoying nature.

There's a lot of outreach programs done through everything from local fish and game departments to nonprofit organizations that are all about clean water and habitat and protection.

A lot of resources today, a lot of ways to get into fishing just have to be a little open minded and have a little curiosity in learning something new (music) All right.

So next time you consider a fishing adventure that offers some history, the promise of making special memories, understanding ecosystems, and the chance to discover someplace new and a few things about yourself.

You don't need to travel to Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

You just need family or friends and maybe one of your nearby national forests.

But come on, really.

The Tongass would still be a very cool place to fish.

(music) The following organizations have provided funding for this into the Outdoors television series.