Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 832 is my conversation with Capt. John Landry, a fishing guide and clean-water advocate I have known since he was ten years old. We trace his path from a few trips on his dad's boat to guiding in Alaska with zero freshwater experience and then building his own business back in Florida. We also dig into the clean-water fight on both ends of the country — the Pebble Mine battle in Bristol Bay and the 2023 EPA ruling that protected it, the parallel war in Florida where the sugar industry is the biggest obstacle, and how Hurricane Ian's aftermath reshaped the fishery.
▶ Watch on YouTube · 🎧 Listen now
Capt. John Landry is a fishing guide and clean-water advocate who guides in both Florida and Alaska. I have known him since he was ten years old, handing him hooked-up rods off the back of my boat. He went from a handful of trips on his dad's boat to guiding in Alaska with no freshwater experience, then came back to Florida and built his own guiding business. He is also active in the fight to protect waterways on both coasts.
The Pebble Mine's mining permit was denied, and in 2023 the EPA used the Clean Water Act to effectively rule that mining will never happen in Bristol Bay because of the mining waste and environmental damage it would cause. John points to it as proof that public awareness and pressure work — getting people behind the movement and letting them apply pressure is one of the biggest tools in the fight.
He went from a couple of trips a year on his dad's boat to putting bread on the table as a guide — a huge leap. He was given time that first year to learn the river, which he is grateful for, and he leaned on humility, asking questions and being a sponge. He also describes guiding and hunting on Saint Paul Island, including boat and beach launches for sea ducks, and a first day there where he says he has rarely felt more alive or focused.
According to John, the biggest proponent working against Florida's water fight is the sugar industry. He contrasts the effectiveness of the Alaska win with the slower Florida battle, and notes the frustrating pattern that whenever a drought clears the water up, the bulk of public pressure disappears — which makes sustained momentum hard.
Captains for Clean Water is central to the Florida fight, and Tom explains that what drew him in was learning the solutions around Lake Okeechobee have already been voted on — the problem is execution and undoing decades of damage. John and Tom compare the Alaska and Florida efforts and what actually moves policy.
John describes being on the water days after the storm and seeing trash at the waterline on every mangrove island and shoreline — damage he expects to be fishing around for ten to fifteen years. He is candid about the pros and cons: the destruction was real, but the lack of people and pressure on the water afterward also produced some of the best fishing scenarios he had seen since he was a kid.
Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 832 with Capt. John Landry is available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio. The video version is embedded at the top of this page — press play to watch.
I have known John since he was a ten-year-old kid I would hand a hooked fish to off the back of the boat. Watching him become a full-time guide on two coasts and a serious clean-water advocate is one of the more rewarding things I have gotten to witness. He has lived the conservation fight in both Bristol Bay and Florida, which gives him a perspective almost nobody has. Press play in the YouTube player above to hear his story.
John is honest about the leap from a few trips on his dad's boat to relying on guiding to put bread on the table. He credits being given time to learn the river his first year, and an attitude of humility — asking questions, listening, being a sponge. He also got to guide and hunt on Saint Paul Island, and he describes that first day there as one of the most alive and focused he has ever felt. Listen to that part in the episode.
This is the conservation win worth understanding. John walks through how the Pebble Mine permit was denied and how the EPA used the Clean Water Act in 2023 to effectively close the door on mining in Bristol Bay. His takeaway is about tactics: awareness plus public pressure is what carried it. Watch that section in the YouTube player above.
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John does not pull punches: the sugar industry is the biggest obstacle to Florida's water battle, and momentum collapses every time a drought clears the water and the public stops paying attention. We compare it to the Alaska win and talk about why the Okeechobee solutions — already voted on — still are not fixing the problem. Hear that comparison in the episode.
Days after the storm, John saw trash at the waterline on every mangrove and shoreline, damage he expects to fish around for a decade or more. He is also honest about the strange upside — fewer people on the water afterward created fishing scenarios he had not seen since childhood. Listen to him describe both sides of it.
The day after this one, what stuck with me was the contrast between the two coasts — a clear, hard-won victory in Bristol Bay and a grinding, two-steps-forward fight in Florida where public attention evaporates the moment the water looks clean.
The other thread is John himself. Watching a kid I have known his whole life turn into a thoughtful guide and advocate is the kind of thing that makes this podcast worth doing.
Watch the whole thing in the player above.
The Tom Rowland Podcast brings you long-form conversations with the most accomplished anglers, hunters, conservationists, and outdoor professionals in the game. Listen to every full-length Tom Rowland Podcast interview.
Capt. John Landry is a professional fishing guide and clean-water advocate who works in both Florida and Alaska. He learned to guide from the ground up — moving from limited time on his father's boat to running rivers in Alaska and then building his own guiding business in Florida. He is an active voice in the fight to protect waterways on both coasts, from the successful effort to block the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay to the ongoing battle for clean water in Florida through organizations like Captains for Clean Water.
Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 832: Clean Water from Florida to Alaska, with Capt. John Landry.
Tom Rowland: Hey, hey, everybody. Welcome to the show today. We have a fantastic guest that I've been trying to get on the podcast for a long time. This particular young man's name is Captain John Landry. I fished with his father, John Landry Senior, for a lot of years down in the Florida Keys, and he started bringing young John when he was about ten years old. John was always a heck of an angler, and his dad was a great angler. It's been fun to watch because young John turned into a guide himself, starting in Alaska and then starting his guide service down in the Fort Myers area. He has developed into a really five-star, very professional, very good fishing guide, and it's been real fun to watch him progress and also become a real voice in conservation, in both Alaska and Florida — a lot of that through Captains for Clean Water. We're gonna talk about a lot of water quality issues, but we're also gonna get his story about how he started guiding, how he made the transition from zero experience in freshwater to guiding in Alaska and then back to Florida starting his business, and going through so many things, man — he's had the BP oil spill, he's had hurricanes, he's had water quality issues, he's had all kinds of things going on and still managed to get this business going and do well. Good people attract other good people, and John is one of those good people. So stand by for a great podcast with my friend, John Landry.
Tom Rowland: John Landry. Wow. Man, I've been wanting to have you on the podcast for a long time, and I'm really, really happy to have you here.
John Landry: Oh, thanks for having me, Tom. This is very exciting for me, and glad to be here.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, well, our history is interesting — we go back because I used to fish with your dad. What age do you think you were when you started coming down and fishing with your dad and me?
John Landry: Man, I was trying to think about that, Tom. I think the first trip I did, I was probably ten years old. And then, man — we used to come down and fish the Redbone tournaments. That sticks out in my head.
Tom Rowland: Oh, it was so fun. Yeah, it was so fun. I remember when you were ten years old, we'd be fishing for whatever, maybe catch some jacks, and I'd hook a fish and hand it over to you as a ten-year-old, and your dad's like, he doesn't want that — he's not gonna reel in your fish, you have to reel that fish in. That's how it went from day one. And, man, you really developed into a great angler, and it's been fun to see you develop this guide career. Tell me how that started. You're going to Alaska, you're guiding in Fort Myers — how did it start for you?
John Landry: I always loved to fish, but honestly, I never saw myself being a fishing guide. It started for me when I went to Florida Gulf Coast University — I got my captain's license out of high school and figured it'd be a good opportunity to guide through college. I was fortunate — my dad had a boat I could use, I had a lot of friends in the business, and I knew I could get some overflow trips on the weekends to get me by. And it was really the opportunity I had in Alaska, my junior year of college, that changed everything. I went to Alaska that summer, and it really changed my life, Tom. I came back that fall and realized whatever I was gonna do the rest of the year had to allow me to go back to Alaska for the summer. When you start thinking about that, you go, well, I could be a teacher — that ain't gonna work. So I fell into full-time guiding, really because of Alaska. I wanted to be able to make my own schedule and be up there for the summer. So after I graduated college, I just fell into it full time and bought my own boat. There's a big change when you go from a couple of trips on your dad's boat here and there to, okay, I'm gonna put bread on my table from guiding — that was a big step for me. And, shoot, when I started was the BP oil spill — that was my first year of full-time guiding. Looking back at the last thirteen years I've been doing it, I've had the BP oil spill, the red tide, the freshwater releases of 2014, COVID, Hurricane Ian. It's a pretty tough climate to start a guide business.
Tom Rowland: I'll tell you what — if you can make it through all of that, you're doing well. What has been the secret to making it through? You got great mentorship from your dad, who's seen a lot of different guides in the industry both do very well and make mistakes. I'd imagine keeping your bills as low as possible while you're starting is super important. But with all these different events going on, what's been the secret to staying in business through all of these bad times?
John Landry: Like you said, definitely being smart about how you spend your money, and then really building and maintaining relationships with my good clients. I think that's been my saving grace. I've got guys who'll come down — last year my tarpon season didn't skip a beat. I've got guys staying in places where there's construction outside and the first floor of the hotel is still wrecked from the storm, but they don't care, they'll still come down to fish with me. I think the relationships I've been able to build have carried me through some hard times.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, that's exactly — we have a very similar story in that. I started my guide career because I went to Yellowstone and had a similar experience to you. I came back and thought, my life has changed, I'm gonna do that every summer, and if it's not that, I'll figure out something else to do. Actually, what I thought I was gonna do next was go to Alaska. You'd probably get a kick out of this — I thought I was gonna work in a cannery. Back then, before the internet, before I knew many people, I'd just heard you could go up there and get a job in a cannery. So I was like, well, that sounds good, I'm gonna go up there. My dad's listening to this plan, and he's like, you don't have a car, you don't know anyone, you don't even know where you're going up there. And he very artfully steered me toward an opportunity to go to a guide school in Jackson, Wyoming instead — his way of saying this sounds like a terrible idea. But, yeah, that's how I ended up doing that too.
John Landry: You owe your dad a big thank you for that.
Tom Rowland: I certainly do, because the cannery thing probably would not have gone very well. I can't imagine.
John Landry: Sure doesn't seem like that much fun.
Tom Rowland: No, it really doesn't. But, you know, I was young and dumb, and that's what a dad's good for — they steer you in the right direction without telling you that you're being really stupid. It's a very careful change of direction, and it worked, and it turned out great. But it was a similar thing — that's what I wanted to do, I just found the saltwater later. Of course, you knew the saltwater first, and I always say that when you raise your kids around the ocean, they want to go to the mountains, and when you raise your kids around the mountains, they want to go to the ocean. So you were drawn to Alaska — how did you get that first opportunity to work up there?
John Landry: I owe my opportunity up there to Andrew Bostic.
Tom Rowland: Oh, yeah.
John Landry: Yeah, I was fishing with Andrew and my dad down in the Everglades — must have been 2010 — and Andrew had just gotten back from a trip up to Bristol Bay, at another lodge, Bristol Bay Lodge. It was his first trip to the area, first trip to that lodge, and he told me, dude, I think this is something you would absolutely love — if I was your age, John, I'd be all over it. That's all I needed to hear. Andrew knew a guy who guided in the park at the time, named Todd Hadley. Todd grew up with the owner of the lodge — well, at the time he was a manager, now he's the owner. Andrew put me in touch with him, and then a phone interview with some awkward questions led to me getting a job. This coming summer will be fourteen years.
Tom Rowland: Wow. So now you're the veteran, but when you first went up there, you had zero experience other than saltwater experience, of course. You'd been around boats your entire life, and you were probably a really good hand — a big, strong kid going up there. But when you enter into a situation like that, no experience, everything new, what is that like? What kind of mindset do you need to have to have success with no experience like that?
John Landry: I think it's just recognizing that you have no experience — that you aren't a great fisherman in an environment that's new to you — and then listening to what others have to say, asking questions, being humble, and just being a sponge for everything you can take in. That's exactly what I did, because, Tom, I knew absolutely nothing. Before getting the job, until I did a little Google search on the lodge and the fishery, I was under the assumption that salmon was one fish — if you caught a salmon, that's a salmon. I didn't realize there were five kinds. I was about as green as you could be, for sure. But I was fortunate — the guys I learned under really took me under their wing. They showed me what I needed to know, what I didn't need to know, and the whole keep-it-simple-stupid mentality. I was given a lot of time to get out on the river that first year and just learn it — very blessed for that opportunity and how I was brought into the fishery.
Tom Rowland: Were you running jet boats, drift boats, or rafts, learning the river?
John Landry: My first year I was running a little eighteen-foot prop boat. Now I run a jet boat, and I do the trout trips up to the section of river we call the Braids. But starting out, it was about six miles above the lodge and two miles below it — a pretty simple body of water to get your feet wet.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, that's awesome, man. So cool to have that opportunity and capitalize on it, and now you've been doing it for fourteen years.
Tom Rowland: Alright, so one of the things we do on the podcast before we get too far along is go to the hot seat — a series of either-or questions, rapid-fire style. It lets the audience get to know you a little better, and maybe there's something funny in here we can talk about further. You ready to go?
John Landry: Lay it on me, Tom. Let's do it.
Tom Rowland: Coffee, tea, or energy drink?
John Landry: Coffee.
Tom Rowland: Mountains or beaches for vacation?
John Landry: Mountains.
Tom Rowland: Favorite fishing movie or TV show?
John Landry: Saltwater Experience. Boom — that's a lock.
Tom Rowland: You brown-noser. Winter Olympics or Summer Olympics?
John Landry: Summer Olympics.
Tom Rowland: Favorite pro wrestler of all time?
John Landry: Going old school — Stone Cold Steve Austin, baby.
Tom Rowland: There you go. Sunrise or sunset?
John Landry: Sunrise.
Tom Rowland: Country, classic rock, or rap?
John Landry: I'd go rap.
Tom Rowland: Rap? Okay, who's your favorite right now?
John Landry: Juice WRLD. You know Juice WRLD, Tom?
Tom Rowland: Yeah, I do — I have kids, and I also have a workout group where people bring in all different kinds of music. We have rap day, we have country day, but typically it's classic rock.
Tom Rowland: Best catch in your career?
John Landry: Oh, my wife.
Tom Rowland: Hey — brown-noser. You're just keeping that going. Text or calls?
John Landry: Text.
Tom Rowland: A movie that makes you laugh?
John Landry: Super Troopers.
Tom Rowland: Last book you remember reading, or your favorite book?
John Landry: The last book I remember reading was the history of the Lake Mansfield Trout Club.
Tom Rowland: Wow, was that good?
John Landry: It was great.
Tom Rowland: Awesome. East Coast or West Coast, which I guess would include Alaska?
John Landry: I'd like to go West Coast.
Tom Rowland: East Coast or West Coast of Florida?
John Landry: West Coast.
Tom Rowland: Early fishing memory or trip that made you a lifetime angler?
John Landry: Oh, I've got so many of those. I'd have to say catching my first tarpon.
Tom Rowland: Nice — who'd you do that with?
John Landry: The first one I did all by myself was with my dad and Andrew in Captiva Pass.
Tom Rowland: Nice, that's awesome. Spinning rod, conventional, or fly rod?
John Landry: For me personally, fly rod.
Tom Rowland: Inshore or offshore?
John Landry: Depends where we're at, Tom.
Tom Rowland: Which do you prefer?
John Landry: Inshore.
Tom Rowland: River, lake, or backcountry?
John Landry: Man, these are tough.
Tom Rowland: I know, can't decide. Would you have a reptile as a pet?
John Landry: Negative.
Tom Rowland: Would you have a bird as a pet?
John Landry: No.
Tom Rowland: One of your favorite bands besides Juice WRLD?
John Landry: Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Tom Rowland: Instagram or Twitter?
John Landry: Instagram.
Tom Rowland: One thing you're afraid of?
John Landry: Damn... that's a tough one.
Tom Rowland: Gamakatsu, Owner, or Mustad?
John Landry: Mustad.
Tom Rowland: The Office, Friends, or Parks and Rec?
John Landry: Office.
Tom Rowland: One piece of technology you rely on heavily other than your phone?
John Landry: My camera.
Tom Rowland: Favorite fish?
John Landry: Tarpon.
Tom Rowland: Android or iPhone?
John Landry: iPhone.
Tom Rowland: Audiobooks, paper, or Kindle for books?
John Landry: Paper.
Tom Rowland: Chocolate or vanilla?
John Landry: Chocolate.
Tom Rowland: Alaska or Florida?
John Landry: Alaska.
Tom Rowland: One piece of advice that has served you well?
John Landry: Live life on your own terms.
Tom Rowland: Nice. Who told you that?
John Landry: My dad kinda instilled that in me at a young age — basically, life is yours for the taking, it's up to you to carve out the lifestyle you want, and everything's possible. So I owe that to my old man.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, well, you got a good old man — he's always been one of my favorite customers, and it's been really cool to see you guys maintain your relationship over the years. You were telling me, when we ran into each other at the Captains for Clean Water event, that he goes up to Alaska with you, or spends a good amount of time up there. What's his program?
John Landry: He's on an every-other-year program right now, and he loves coming up and helping out. He has just as much fun staying at the lodge and offering a hand — whether it's preparing meals, doing projects, or working on boats — as he does out there fishing. He just loves being at the lodge, being part of the lodge family, and helping get stuff done. It's great to have him up there, and I cherish that time for sure.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome. Is the every-other-year thing the way he prefers it, or what the lodge needs?
John Landry: No, that's on his terms — honestly, it's the travel. It's a lot of travel for him, so every other year is his terms.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome that he does that and you guys do it together.
Tom Rowland: Another thing I've seen you do — and I just got back from a duck and goose hunt in Saskatchewan, which was incredible — is duck hunt for sea ducks, the king eider. Tell me about that. It's supposed to be the hardest, most difficult environment to hunt ducks in — I don't know if the birds are hard to hunt, but that's a tough place to hunt, I think. Tell me about it, because I've never done it.
John Landry: Yeah, I really can't imagine a harder, harsher environment to hunt ducks in, that's for sure. The thing about it is, I had never killed a duck in my lifetime — the first duck I ever killed was a king eider, so I'm probably the only American aside from a native growing up on St. Paul who can say that. It was a buddy of mine, Russell Owen, who I guided with in the summer at fish camp — sea duck hunting was his passion, like tarpon fishing was mine. He was ate up with it, probably the best in the world. He ended up calling me one October — they had a small operation, and one of his guys couldn't make it up — so he called and said, hey man, I need you to come up and guide St. Paul if you'd be interested, I'm not gonna make it up. He knew I didn't hunt, had never killed a duck. But it sounded like a wild experience, and I didn't want to let Russ down. I just trusted that he'd show me the ropes, and he did — I owe all my success up there to following his game plan and doing exactly what he told me. That was just a wild experience. I did two years out there, and hopefully one day I'd go back and do it again. No regrets on that.
Tom Rowland: Tell me about the hunting itself. For Florida hunters, a lot of people hunt places like the Okeechobee area, which is typically warm water — you've got alligators, bugs, all kinds of things. Then up north you've got cold-weather hunting, waders and boats. But walk us through what a king eider hunt looks like.
John Landry: A king eider hunt starts with checking the weather hard the night before — that dictates your plans for the next day. Depending on the weather, we usually have three options: launch from the boat ramp on the south side of the harbor, do a beach launch off the leeward side of the island, or do a shore hunt, hunting from the rocks while waiting for birds to fly by. The thing about the shore hunt, though, is there are no dogs allowed on the island of St. Paul — that's to protect the seal population. So when you're hunting on land because the weather's too bad to get out in the boat, you have to hunt on the windward side of the island to get your birds back, and after you shoot one, the waves wash it into the rocks. As the new guide on St. Paul, I guess I was the Labrador retriever — out of everything I did, that was definitely my least favorite, chasing down slippery rocks after somebody shot a bird.
Tom Rowland: And what temperatures are you typically hunting in?
John Landry: It wasn't too bad — a range of probably twelve to thirty-five degrees, somewhere in there.
Tom Rowland: Wow, twelve degrees, waves crashing all over you probably, right?
John Landry: Calmly, the worst weather I was ever out in a boat in was my first day. I swear to God, I remember lying in bed — you could hear the tin roofs on the old buildings just beating into the side of the building. I looked over at Russ and said, we're not going out now, right? And he's like, oh yes, it's an east wind, we'll be fine. Turned out it was blowing forty to fifty. We launched anyway, and — if you've watched Deadliest Catch — the Time Bandit was in the harbor pulling crab pots or something. We pulled over to get a photo with the guys, and it was just like the show — flags tattered, lights on, sideways rain and sleet everywhere. We pulled up next to the boat, and Hillstrand rolled the window down, flicked his cigarette out, stuck his head out, and said, you guys are crazy, and slammed the window back up. And I'm thinking, I've watched every episode of that show on my couch, and these guys are calling me crazy. That was a real reality-check moment for me, for sure.
Tom Rowland: And were you successful that day?
John Landry: I did — we limited out first day out.
Tom Rowland: Dang. And from that point on, it's been easier than day one?
John Landry: Easier in the sense that I didn't have the nerves anymore. I got out with Russ one day before clients came in just to see how to get in and out of the harbor, and once I'd memorized the run, it was just about getting that comfort zone, getting the first-day bugs out of the way. It was easier.
Tom Rowland: And I noticed you take your dog up there too, right?
John Landry: Not to St. Paul — they don't allow dogs on the island.
Tom Rowland: That's what I was wondering, since I'd seen your dog in some of your posts.
John Landry: Oh, yeah, she comes up to the fishing lodge for sure.
Tom Rowland: So what's a good day of king eider hunting look like? Do you get one, or can you get your limit?
John Landry: As a nonresident hunter, you're only allowed four king eiders for the year.
Tom Rowland: For the year? Wow.
John Landry: Yep. So basically, if you had good weather, could get out in the boat, and were somewhat of a good shot, you should kill a good chunk of your birds in that day. But since you're only shooting four birds, you want them all to be primo birds — a mature drake king eider. So the best day would be going out and shooting for mature drake kings.
Tom Rowland: And are you using decoys, or how do you get them to you?
John Landry: We'd run decoys — I'd run six or seven birds — enough to pull birds in for a look, but they're never really decoying into the spread. You're really just getting in the lane where the birds want to go naturally, setting yourself up for pass shooting. The birds want to come into the rocky points and reefs to feed, so you're just intercepting their flyways.
Tom Rowland: Wow, that's a cool-looking bird — really one of the most beautiful ducks, right up there with a southern wood duck, all those colors. I don't know if I want to do it bad enough to go in those conditions, but maybe one day. It seems like you'd need the right time of year, the right day, almost a special trip just for those. Were the people coming up there very serious duck hunters chasing that last species?
John Landry: Oh, yeah, just about all of them — diehard duck hunters, every single one. Usually it was the last bird in their quest to shoot every duck species in North America, since it was so hard to get to. So here I am, never having killed a duck, and one of the hardest things for me was shooting the shit with the guys, talking duck hunting, and trying to seem confident and capable without telling them I'd never killed a duck before.
Tom Rowland: How do you do that?
John Landry: You just don't nail yourself down to any specifics, kinda go with the flow. Guys would ask, do you do a lot of duck hunting down in Florida? And I'd say, well, not as much as I'd like to — and let them fill in the rest. Oh, you get bluebills sometimes? Yeah. So you don't nail yourself down, and you go with the flow. But as a guide, you have to have confidence — you can't let your clients know you've never done this before, no matter what it is.
Tom Rowland: Right, I'm having flashes of my first guided trip ever — I got lost on the way to the river, didn't even know how to get there, but they asked, so you've been guiding long? Oh yeah, long time.
John Landry: Long time.
Tom Rowland: Long time for me — I mean, you're not lying, technically. I'd been there for two weeks, the longest I'd been away from home in my whole life. So, long time. But those first trips are tough — I was so nervous I think I peed all over myself in the bathroom, and my boss is banging on the door saying your clients are here, hurry up. I'm walking out to meet these guys, and I remember they were so hungover that they both fell asleep in the truck. I'm driving down to the river, and I get to a fork — one way led to the Green River, the other to the Salt River — and I couldn't remember which way to go, had to turn around, and they never even noticed. I was as green as you were going to Alaska for the first time. Good times, though — somehow you make it through.
John Landry: I think anytime you put yourself in a position where you allow yourself to be uncomfortable, and you're still able to get the job done, it's a very rewarding experience. That first day on St. Paul, man, I don't know if I've ever felt more alive and more focused than I did that day.
Tom Rowland: Ain't that something. And the funny thing is, now you're fourteen years into it and you still love it. Do you have the same attitude of trying to listen and learn from everybody you can, or has that changed?
John Landry: In terms of Alaska fishing, yeah, that's definitely changed — I tune in and tune out to who I'm really listening to now, as opposed to just making conversation. This would be year fourteen. I remember my first year on the river, hearing about guys like, oh, that's Jeff, he's been on the river eight years, thinking, wow, that guy's basically a grandpa on the river. Now there's guys like Bill who've been there fourteen, fifteen years, and I realize I'm one of the oldest guys on the river myself. Kinda a cool thing to come full circle with.
Tom Rowland: It is. And you've got a lot of years under your belt back home too, in Fort Myers — what's your program in the saltwater?
John Landry: My bread and butter is tarpon fishing. Over the last couple of years I've changed my business model so I'm not trying to fish hard every month. Now I fish tarpon here March through June, I'm in Alaska through September, and then I fish a couple of my really good clients October through the first two weeks of November. After that I really pull the reins back and take time for me and my wife to travel and do things we want to do, December through February. That's been one of the best decisions I've made in my guiding career — it's very important to maintain relationships outside of fishing. It's hard to grind day in, day out and still maintain a healthy relationship with your wife or your kids.
Tom Rowland: That's a very mature way to think about it, and a lot of guides lose track of that. When you're so passionate about what you're doing, you can take for granted the best things in your life — your family, your wife, your kids. You're working so hard for them, but somewhere along the line you forget they also need you. It's easy to do, and unfortunately there are plenty of guides you can learn from who weren't successful outside of their fishing — some of the best fishermen ever, but they couldn't keep their family together.
John Landry: Yeah, and like you said, you learn from growing up watching people do it the right way and the wrong way. I remember seeing guys lose their relationship, lose their wife, lose their family, and you can attribute it to how much they worked or guided. So it's a little mental note for me — when I get down the road, focus on my family, avoid the burnout, and make it something I can do for a long time while still being happy doing what I love. You talk to a lot of guides who really aren't that happy — a lot of times it's a position they put themselves in, over-leveraged, in a bad spot financially, having to fish a lot, fish bad weather, fish clients they don't want to fish. I've just been fortunate to position myself where I am now.
Tom Rowland: What about the change of seasons and locations — how much do you think that keeps you engaged? At this point in your career, if the fishing allowed for three hundred sixty-five days in Alaska, and you had to choose between that and three hundred sixty-five days in Florida, would you still want to move around and do two different seasons?
John Landry: Yeah, I think I would. As much as I love Alaska, three sixty-five up there you'd still have phases of burnout, getting tired of the scenery — sounds crazy to say, but that's reality. By the time I'm winding down my tarpon season, I can't wait to get to Alaska, and that helps me get through the tarpon season with a positive attitude, knowing I'm heading to Alaska in a couple weeks. That's been huge for my career and for staying in love with the game.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, I think that's incredibly important. Even in Florida, for me it was getting a bay boat, getting out of the skiff after fly fishing for tarpon every day for a long time, and saying, we're gonna run around, find new stuff, load up the livewell with bait, and catch some fish, even if they're just snappers. That change was big for me. I think you need some kind of change — a change of scenery, a vacation, a different boat, trying offshore for a while. It made a difference to me. What's on your bucket list? What kind of things have you done with those three months you set aside?
John Landry: We've been on a Costa Rica kick these last couple years. Last year we actually got married down in Costa Rica and stuck around — ended up spending five or six weeks there. The year before, we spent two months, January and February. Planning on going back this year.
Tom Rowland: What do you do down there?
John Landry: A lot of fishing, a lot of relaxing, a lot of photography, just hanging out — spending time with my wife and my dogs and just living.
Tom Rowland: Have you found a good spot you keep going back to, or are you still exploring?
John Landry: A little bit of both. This next trip, we'll hit a couple of our favorite spots, and then check out the Caribbean side, which we haven't been to yet. God willing, that's the plan.
Tom Rowland: Which side has the good surfing?
John Landry: The Pacific side.
Tom Rowland: I've heard really good things about the surfing down there, cool little towns to hang out and surf — seems awesome.
John Landry: Yeah, if you're into surfing, it looks like paradise. I'm not a surfer or any kind of board-sport guy, but I was out there on the boogie board catching some waves and getting yelled at by the surfers.
Tom Rowland: Well, I'm not a surfer either, but I went to Hawaii and surfed with my boys. We got a guide, which I thought was kinda cool — a surf guide acts a lot like a fishing guide, and if you get a good one, your day is so much better. He puts you in exactly the right spot, and if somebody starts to horn in on you, he handles it. The locals are cool with it if you're with him. He even pushes your board if you need it, but when you don't know surfing and you're a hundred yards outside the right spot, you catch nothing, and it's frustrating. Being with somebody who really knows it well was a great enhancement to the day. As a guide myself, I could see the skill it takes — this guy's a full-on professional, could probably surf most days of the year if he wanted, but all he really wants to do is go surf the big waves later. What we were doing felt like catching pinfish while all he wanted was to catch tarpon — that's cool, we're happy catching pinfish. I did that trip with my boys, and later with my daughter on a separate trip to Hawaii. What I liked was, he'd check you out, and if you were pretty good, he'd move you down the beach to a different wave, put you exactly where you needed to be. Some of those waves went so far — the Pacific felt different, more powerful, even for a little two-foot wave, than the East Coast, where the power is there but the period is short, it wants to rip your feet out from under you and then it's over. I've never surfed in Costa Rica, only fished there, but man, it's incredible just to be out there. What kind of fishing were you doing in Costa Rica?
John Landry: Dude, I did everything from blue-water offshore fishing to rainbow trout fishing.
Tom Rowland: Rainbow trout?
John Landry: Rainbow trout.
Tom Rowland: Awesome. What's that situation — are those stocked fish?
John Landry: Stocked fish, I think from the 1940s. A couple years before we made the big trip down, I saw Fly Lords post a little piece on Costa Rica trout fishing — they didn't say where, just that there was a place in Costa Rica where you could catch rainbow trout. That piqued my curiosity, so I did some research, figured out where it was, and about five days before I left — no time to order any gear — I went on Amazon and got the Montana Fly Company beginner's trout box, which gave me a few of every fly. I dragged my wife up to a little town called San Gerardo de Dota — write that down if you're going to Costa Rica and want to do something cool. We stayed three or four nights, and I should have hired a guide but there was none available on short notice, so we just walked up and down the river finding the access points where you're legally allowed to go without getting in trouble. That was probably some of my favorite fishing we did in Costa Rica.
Tom Rowland: Really? What does a Costa Rican trout stream look like?
John Landry: Kinda like how you'd picture it. The streams are high altitude, so it's not quite as tropical-feeling as the coast, but still very lush and beautiful — birds, monkeys. Small water, absolutely gorgeous. That's the thing with trout fishing — a lot of times it's about where you're doing it. Trout live in some beautiful places, and that's one of my favorite things about the species.
Tom Rowland: That's right. Is that a spring coming out of the ground that sustains the temperature for rainbow trout?
John Landry: I'd be lying if I tried to name the source of that river, or the exact altitude, but it's high enough that you want a jacket morning and evening. Water's probably 55 to 60 degrees.
Tom Rowland: Enough to sustain them all year long — that's super cool. Any big ones?
John Landry: They're not big trout, all small.
Tom Rowland: Thirteen, fourteen inches?
John Landry: I think the biggest I saw was about thirteen inches.
Tom Rowland: That's cool. And they ate all the beginner flies — nymphs, dries, everything?
John Landry: They really liked the nymph dropper — didn't matter what it was, long as it was a beadhead and black.
Tom Rowland: So are there hatches on those rivers?
John Landry: Yeah, they get hatches, and there's a lot of terrestrial life on the creeks. Caught a couple on dries, but there wasn't a hatch happening while I was there. Just a really cool fishery to immerse yourself in for a couple days.
Tom Rowland: That's so cool. My son is getting ready to go to New Zealand — spending two months there.
John Landry: That's a bucket list trip for me.
Tom Rowland: Me too, I want to go there real bad. Which island is he going to?
John Landry: Which island is he going to?
Tom Rowland: The trip's still kinda materializing, but I think the South Island.
John Landry: Yeah, that's the island — supposed to have the beautiful, epic trout fishing.
Tom Rowland: With two months, he might get to both islands and do some exploring. That's another place where, from all the pictures and videos, it's a lifetime bucket-list kind of thing.
Tom Rowland: One thing that's interesting about you — Captains for Clean Water did a film with you — is that you've got both a Florida and an Alaska perspective on the state of the fisheries and water quality. A lot of people don't know there are fishery issues in Alaska too — there was the Pebble Mine, which you can tell us about. And of course we talk a lot on the podcast about the water issues in Florida, which people are more familiar with. Give us a compare-and-contrast between the two places, and what you've seen in your fourteen years up there.
John Landry: Unfortunately, I've seen both fisheries decline somewhat, though to different extents. With the Pebble Mine issue, I had a chance to at least use my voice to fight against it. It's like Florida, where Lake Okeechobee was never leveed up on the south side, and water flowed naturally, until a farming company came in wanting to stop the flow south, levee it up, and create farmland — that would never happen now, I'd hope. Down the road, if Pebble Mine had been allowed and there was a catastrophic failure, what that would do to one of the most pristine areas on the planet would be unacceptable. We already have enough issues we're trying to figure out how to control, so stopping a Pebble Mine, or restoring the natural flow of water through the Everglades, is a no-brainer to me. We need to do everything we can to protect these wild places. There are so many water issues in Florida — it seems like a no-brainer: why can't we just send the water south, the way it's supposed to go?
Tom Rowland: What have you seen, in the two places, about the effectiveness of different strategies for getting involved? And first, bring us up to speed on the Pebble Mine — what's happened with it?
John Landry: The Pebble Mine's permit was denied, and the EPA rewrote the Clean Water Act rules — long story short, in 2023 the EPA ruled that mining would never happen in Bristol Bay because of the mining waste and environmental damage. This last summer, the governor of Alaska sued the EPA, arguing they had no right to make that ruling. So as it stands, the state of Alaska is suing the EPA, but the permit is still denied.
Tom Rowland: Do you think denying that permit was influenced by anglers, outdoors people, and their voices?
John Landry: Absolutely. That was a lot of fuel to the fire for fighting Pebble Mine — raising public awareness. A lot of people didn't even know what Pebble Mine was. When I first got to Alaska, I remember seeing the stickers and thinking, who wants to mine pebbles? So just bringing awareness to the issue and getting people involved — I think that's one of the biggest tools we have: getting people behind the movement, making them aware, and letting them apply pressure.
Tom Rowland: When you look at the effectiveness of what happened in Alaska versus what Captains for Clean Water has accomplished, what comparisons can you draw? Is there anything Florida can learn from Alaska, or vice versa?
John Landry: With Alaska, it's encouraging to see something so detrimental to the environment get stopped. You always assume money wins, that environmental concerns lose to corporate interests. It was very energizing to see that reversed — this is a situation with the largest gold deposit in the world, and environmental interests still prevailed. That's very encouraging. It's something I wish we could change in Florida, where the biggest proponent against our water issues is the sugar industry, and it still feels like you're the underdog in a massive fight.
Tom Rowland: Well, we are the underdog in a massive fight, and money, more often than not, does win — and in this case the sugar industry is about as big money as there is. I think Captains for Clean Water and a lot of other groups do a great job bringing awareness and getting people involved, but it's a big fight, and sometimes I notice the momentum drop off, especially when things are good, or when something else needs even more immediate attention — like the hurricane you had in Fort Myers not long ago, which was an incredibly serious storm. The last time I saw you in person was at the Captains for Clean Water event, and I drove all through there — it was as rough as any hurricane I've seen, including Katrina in Louisiana. When something like that happens and needs more immediate attention, maybe we lose a little momentum on the water fight, and maybe that's acceptable, because that's where our attention needs to go.
John Landry: That's exactly right, though. With us, anytime there's a little drought in our rainy season and the water starts to clean up, there goes the bulk of the public pressure — oh, the water's fine now, what are we fixing? We need to understand the problem still persists, and until we get a real solution, you're always going to have the potential for these water quality issues.
Tom Rowland: Don't you think there's already a solution out there with Okeechobee? That's one of the things that got me more interested in Captains for Clean Water — they explained that the solutions have already been voted on, the money's there, we just need to bring awareness and make sure it happens. It's been slow. We've made some big strides, but there's still a long way to go, because there's a lot to undo before you can fix anything.
John Landry: Right, and that's the thing — seeing all we have to undo to fix our problems. Take Pebble Mine in Alaska: you can prevent all that mitigation by just stopping the problem right now — no Pebble Mine, not here, not now, not ever. So, yeah, we have a long way to go in Florida, but the climate has changed, and thanks to groups like Captains for Clean Water applying pressure and promoting awareness, I feel like we have a voice in the fight now, we're able to make some noise. Florida has more issues than just Lake Okeechobee and Everglades restoration, though. It's disheartening — after being gone four months, driving to the ramp, it's like, oh, there's another community going up, they just destroyed that whole piece of land for a shopping center. At what point does that stop? We already have water quality issues from localized factors — fertilizer, septic tank runoff, outdated systems — and it's just more development on top of more development. Where do we draw the line?
Tom Rowland: I don't know. And more people are moving in every single day — Florida is a place people want to live, not just retirees, but people from other states unhappy with how things are managed there. So the big question is where it stops, and how you protect the things people are moving there for in the first place — not just the sunshine, but the beautiful beaches, clean water, birds, great fishing. And even if you're not into fishing, water quality affects everyone — nobody wants to walk the beach during a red tide when everything's dead and washing up. It applies to everybody. And that reminder needs to stay out there even when things are good, like you were saying.
John Landry: Yeah, you've got to keep your foot on the gas. Even when the water's clean, you have to realize it's not clean because of some big fix — it's clean because we're in a drought and there hasn't been much rain to release from the lake. So just keep your foot on the gas, and when times are good, stay on it.
Tom Rowland: How's the hurricane recovery going in your area?
John Landry: They've done an amazing job up to this point, an unbelievable amount of work — but there's still an unbelievable amount left to do. I was on Fort Myers Beach the other day, driving around thinking, how long until this is back to normal? I'd say five to eight years. That's a long time. Same goes for the coastal communities that were hit hard — Sanibel, Pine Island, Matlacha — they took a beating. It's a long road, but recovery is underway. It just takes time to get things back to what they were.
Tom Rowland: On the other hand, we're fortunate to have the facilities, equipment, people, and money to clean up after something like that. In the Bahamas, you see dilapidated buildings that were once nice, and you find out that was a storm fifteen years ago. You take for granted — say what you want about FEMA, but that's a hell of a resource.
John Landry: Absolutely.
Tom Rowland: We saw it in the Keys after Irma — mountains of trash that could've easily just stayed there. But sooner or later, that whole thing's gone and it looks a little better. Just patience, I guess. It's incredible what a storm like that can do.
John Landry: Yeah, I remember being on the water a couple days after the storm, looking at every mangrove island, every shoreline — literally trash up to where the waterline hit the trees. I remember thinking this would be an issue for the next ten to fifteen years, that you'd be fishing shorelines with trash on them for a long time. But thanks to FEMA and that cleanup crew, those shorelines are pretty clean now — an unbelievable amount of work went into the beaches, the islands, the whole cleanup effort.
Tom Rowland: Did the fishing recover pretty quickly after the storm?
John Landry: Right after the storm hit, it knocked out the causeway, so my day-to-day was just getting people to and from Sanibel and helping out however I could — I didn't get to fish right away. But you could tell it was a huge mixing event — the water was turned up, there was stuff in it that shouldn't have been there. So the initial impact was negative, but the lack of people and pressure on the water enabled some really cool fishing scenarios I hadn't seen since I was a kid — pros and cons to both. Without the human development side of it, a hurricane naturally would probably be good for the fishery — cleans up the bottom, pulls water out of the bay, a little refresh. Our issue was the storm mixing all the human waste and trash into everything.
Tom Rowland: Plus they have to release a lot of water out of Okeechobee — if there's heavy rain even on the other side of the state, that water's coming your way, and that causes even more issues. But all in all, it sounds like the recovery is heading in the right direction.
John Landry: Absolutely.
Tom Rowland: I wish everyone in those areas the best — it's tough, you don't wish it on anybody, especially having gone through it yourself several times in the Keys. It's a rough deal, but I'm glad things are on the improvement side.
Tom Rowland: When we used to fish with your dad and a bad front would come in, we'd say we're heading for the barn. There was always this threat of a pancake-eating contest between us that we never got around to. But your dad —
John Landry: Been talking about it for a long time.
Tom Rowland: He has, and he assured me with a hundred percent certainty that there was no way I could out-eat you, and you were only ten or eleven years old at the time.
John Landry: No way — that was just my dad being my dad. I was never a killer pancake eater, but I was a little chunky kid, so that's probably what he was thinking. As confident as you are about this contest, I know I don't stand a chance, but it'd be fun.
Tom Rowland: I love pancakes, one of my favorite foods, so one of these days we'll get to it — hopefully when I finally get down to fish with you and we get a bad weather day. I want your dad there when I take you down. I'm no Joey Chestnut, but I can put away maybe two full stacks of really nice pancakes. Anyway, John, it's been awesome catching up with you. Tell people how they'd book a trip with you if they wanted to — I know you're busy, but you've always got to keep it out there.
John Landry: Absolutely. Anybody who wants to get in touch, my Instagram is Sportfisha, and in Alaska it's Anglers Alibi — I run both of those pages, so send me a message there. Or call or text my cell, (239) 222-4265.
Tom Rowland: Man, the footage you're getting on Sportfisha is incredible — everyone should follow both Anglers Alibi and Sportfisha, because John's getting incredible stuff of bears, moose, some of it drone footage. It's incredible what you're capturing up there.
John Landry: Thank you very much. Alaska makes an amateur photographer look like a pro.
Tom Rowland: Well, you've got to have the right subjects, and you definitely do up there. Do you see a lot of bears on a daily basis in the area you're fishing? I know some parts of Alaska you'll see bears constantly — what's the situation where you are?
John Landry: Early in the season, when the sockeye come into the river, it's a daily thing — multiple bears every day. Once the sockeye move through the system to spawn, most of the bears follow the salmon, though some stick around for the other species, your chum, kings, and silvers. We expect bears every day, but the volume changes through the season. Later on, we fly out to the streams where the sockeye are spawning to fish for rainbow trout, and this past year, sitting on a bluff at one of our streams, I counted thirty-eight bears in the body of water we'd be fishing. Thirty-eight.
Tom Rowland: Wow, and you just go on in there?
John Landry: Yeah, man, it's literally like fishing inside the cage at the zoo. I had a guy this year who looked at me and asked, are we allowed to go down there? And I said, well, you are now, but I could see them putting a stop to it twenty-five years from now.
Tom Rowland: And that seems like something that would've been tough to get used to when you were green and just starting out.
John Landry: Big time. Big time.
Tom Rowland: How do you build up the experience to read them the way we'd read a tarpon — you know this one's fine, that one over there, no? Have you had some interesting encounters?
John Landry: Oh, yeah, plenty of interesting encounters. I've never had one where I was truly scared for my safety or my clients' safety, but fishing that close to that many bears, you're gonna have stories for sure — nothing deadly or scary, but I've been close to a lot of bears.
Tom Rowland: A grizzly bear, especially one up there, bigger than the ones we have in Montana — man, ultimate respect for that animal.
John Landry: What you need to understand is that because of the salmon, it's a totally different animal, how it interacts with you and you with it. I remember a trip to Montana and Wyoming as a kid where the bears were a real threat, a serious situation because of the lack of food. In Alaska, the salmon run is so prolific that bears don't view you as a food source. You could put yourself in a spot where a bear sees you as competition for its food, but it's not going to be starving and think, maybe I'll go eat that fisherman. It creates a unique environment to interact with these huge animals that could rip you apart in a second. It's pretty special — probably one of my favorite things about fishing in Alaska, that relationship you build with the bears.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome, man, I'd love to come fish with you up there. What's the status of the lodge — do you take new customers, or is it booked out years in advance?
John Landry: It's booked out, depending on the weeks you want, about two years in advance. But there are always guys who have to drop out for one reason or another, so it's always worth a phone call if you're interested — get on a list for this year or grab a spot next year. We're a small lodge, we take twelve guests a week.
Tom Rowland: That's what I was going to ask, the capacity. And you fly out from the lodge to wherever you're going?
John Landry: Yep.
Tom Rowland: Float planes or wheel planes?
John Landry: Float planes.
Tom Rowland: And they land on the river, or somewhere else?
John Landry: Depends — a lot of the time, when we fly out to the small streams, they're too small for a float plane, so you land on a little pothole lake, hike a mile or two to the river, landing basically in a tundra pothole.
Tom Rowland: Wow, that's cool, man. Those pilots up there are serious. I did a fly-out trip once, and the pilot said, oh man, I forgot my wallet — we're gonna stop by my house. He had a little pothole right in front of his house where he kept the plane. I couldn't believe that was his house, that we were landing on that little drip of water, and he's like, oh yeah, every day. Sure enough, he dropped that thing in, landed, ran inside, grabbed what he needed, and we were back out. I didn't think there was enough room to take off. Those guys are seriously legit.
John Landry: They're legit, true professionals.
Tom Rowland: No matter the weather — well, I'm sure as true professionals they also know when to call it. But I just couldn't believe it. That's the cool thing, that's how they deliver the mail up there, that's how everything moves — floatplane. As comfortable as you'd be as an Uber driver in New York, that's how they are in those planes, every day, delivering people, mail, everything. Incredible. It's like how the bears are one of your favorite parts of Alaska, or certain kinds of hunting — I like watching the dogs work as much as I like hunting the birds. Same kind of thing — I like watching those float plane pilots as much as I like fishing.
John Landry: Absolutely. Yep, pretty cool.
Tom Rowland: Alright, man, it's been awesome catching up with you. We will have our pancake-eating contest — I don't want anything in mine if you're making them, no blueberries or —
John Landry: Yeah, I'm the same way — no chocolate chips either.
Tom Rowland: Right, it's already good, why put something else in it? The pancakes are already awesome. We're good with plain pancakes, and lots of them. Alright, John.
John Landry: Fair enough.
Tom Rowland: It's been awesome catching up with you. Please tell your dad I said hello, and wish him my best. We'll catch up with you soon, hopefully on the boat together one of these days.
John Landry: Sounds good, Tom. Thanks for having me, man.
Tom Rowland: Alright, thanks, John. See you.
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