Flylab Interview: Kyle Schaefer
The destination fly fishing lodge business is complicated–so many things need to line up to make a location truly viable.
Kyle Schaefer is a captain, fly-fishing guide, lodge owner, conservationist and entrepreneur. He is the owner and head guide of Soul Fly Outfitters and co-owner of Soul Fly Lodge in The Bahamas. Kyle and his partners recently launched Soul Fly Co., an event company committed to gathering community around fly fishing, music, art, advocacy and “unmistakably good vibes.” He spends most of his time guiding in Maine, running his lodge and fighting for wild fish and wild places through his tireless conservation work. His advocacy work with the American Saltwater Guides Association has brought him to testify in front of the U.S. Senate, where he speaks on behalf of saltwater conservation, a warming maritime climate, striped bass protection and sustainable fisheries. The fly-fishing industry needs more individuals like Kyle.
Kyle, tell us a little about yourself and why you decided to start a fly-fishing lodge in The Bahamas?
I’m Kyle Schaefer, the co-founder and co-owner of Soul Fly Lodge in The Bahamas, and the biggest part of my job is running the week-to-week lodge operations and keeping us on track.
I got into this industry as a trout guide right out of college, and I’ve stayed dedicated and true to the guiding profession for my whole career. I’ve been lucky to guide in a few different places–Colorado, Maine, Argentina–and also to manage a lodge in The Bahamas, where I learned a ton about that part of the world.
Working in all these different places allowed me to feel ready to start my own place, and when I was managing the lodge in The Bahamas, I fell in love with it all–the fishery, the lifestyle. With my naturally entrepreneurial mindset, I had a very specific concept for how I would approach a lodge and had been investigating some nuggets of information about The Berry Islands, in particular–eventually, it became, let’s see if we can talk ourselves out of this idea and we never could.
So, now we’re about to begin our sixth season in The Berrys in the northern Bahamas, running a six-room lodge with four-boats, and having a blast.
Were you still running striped bass trips in Maine during this time?
100%. I’ve been a striped bass guide under the Soul Fly Outfitters brand for years, which is where the Soul Fly name originally came from–just my little one-man guiding business up here in Maine. I’ve been doing that for the last eleven years and actually, this is the first season that I’m going to take a step back from guiding. Life has become busy in a lot of ways, and I’ve had to prioritize.
Can you talk a little bit about how you became interested in The Berry Islands?
The destination fly fishing lodge business is complicated–so many things need to line up to make a location truly viable. For one, The Berry Islands, logistically, are easy to get to. It’s relatively easy to supply there. It’s a small community and the island’s also small; you’re driving five minutes to the airport and five minutes to the marina. All of that adds up to hours and hours of saved time throughout the week.
Another reason that The Berrys were interesting to us is that the fishery has been run by some wonderful independent guides for a long time–the Darville family. They’ve been operating out of there for decades, and after COVID, things got slow for a lot of those guys. So, our timing was really good when we started looking at opportunities, and there also was this wonderful openness of the independent guides to start working with us and to start operating in a different way. They didn’t have to manage their boats, they didn’t have to worry about good food, hospitality and a great place to stay. It just allows the guys to fully focus on their craft, and we can help support the clients and provide a memorable Bahamian experience.
How did you get to know the Darville family? Conceptually, when you put a pin on the map it makes sense, but in reality, how did you actually pull this off?
Totally. So, I heard about The Berry Islands from two people I really respected–one is Bob Cosgriff, who is a Bahamian permit hunter. He loves fishing The Bahamas and he’d been fishing with Percy Darville–Percy is the patriarch fishing guide of The Berry Islands. He’s 73 and has been guiding for around 55 years. He was in his mid-teens when he started. Percy is just Percy–he’s the guy, and he’s the guy to build a relationship with down there. I got his contact information from Bob and started booking some time with Percy.
Me and my partner Alec Griswold, Griz, did the first couple trips. My wife and Griz also did some trips, slowly working on building a relationship. And looking back, that was going to be our make or break, because if Percy had said, “I don’t want you guys here. I don’t want you guys to do this lodge thing,” we would’ve turned around and said, “All right, well, we’d love to come back and fish, but we will absolutely respect your decision there.”
That was a big thing–getting Percy’s blessing. And we had some really special fishing. We got to see the permit fishery and be successful on our first day. So, that helps build a solid relationship with a fishing guide pretty quickly. The next day, Griz, the same deal. He got lucky with a bigger permit. And then we finished the day with some incredible tailing bonefish at sunset. It’s just one of those deals where you’re like, man, if we can’t hear the universe talking, we must be deaf.
We were building a relationship with this incredible man and legend–one of the original Bahamian fishing guides and one of the oldest and longest running guides–and having special days on the water. We were seeing all this potential, seeing that he could really benefit economically from us from working together. So, we threw Percy a proposal and laid it out there. He consulted with a few good friends and eventually said, “Where were you 10 years ago?” He opened the door wide open, and we got the green light from Percy.
There was a property for sale, and it was an interesting time to buy something during COVID. You couldn’t quite see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we were in negotiations trying to secure this cool historic property that had been through a few different chapters. We ended up getting our offer accepted and we thought, “Holy smokes, this is getting real.” You get the offer accepted and realize you just bought a zoo. From there, it’s just one day at a time, putting the pieces together. We brought the chef we worked with over in Andros, and he was very excited to come over and work with us–very consistent, and an amazing guy. Boom, that piece of the program was solidified.
Now we had to build out the guide team, which was the hardest part.
How did COVID impact your business planning?
Timing is everything and the timing worked out well for us. We were able to negotiate the property in the middle of COVID and then as the fog started to lift on travel, we were getting ready to operate. People were getting ready to book again, and they were curious about this place they’d never heard about right under their nose in the northern Bahamas–tucked right in the center of Andros, Abaco, Bimini and Grand Bahama. All incredible fisheries. People’s desire to get back to traveling was also in our favor.
Then we added people like Travis Sands to the guide team, who is arguably one of the most creative, driven and talented fishing guides in the Caribbean. He’s also an incredible man. Freddie Dames was a comrade of Travis on South Andros and has been guiding for over 26 years–he signed on. Freddie is a lovable, storytelling, singing fishing guide who loves what he does every day. From there we’ve continued to build the team out–Percy Darville, Chester Darville and most recently, LJ Bean also hailing from South Andros–and that’s been the hardest work. That is where we’re putting a ton of focus. We should be able to have a good, consistent food program if we’re putting the right amount of effort into it. We should be able to have clean, comfortable rooms. All that stuff should be assumed, to a degree.
But ultimately, it’s about the guide program and how we work the fishery. How do we modernize the way we work, while also being highly cognizant of the pressure we’re putting on the resource. From a business perspective, this is where we’ll have the most growth and learning, because at the end of the day, fishing lodges and catch and release programs are all extractive. We’re educating the fish about what we’re doing and it changes their behavior over time, whether you’re a recreational angler or fishing lodge. We keep a lot of these issues top of mind and are very careful with how we set expectations for our clients.
It’s interesting how you’ve thought about building a guide staff. The archetypal western fly shop just hires a bunch of big, strong kids, puts them on the river and lets them row. But you’ve approached your guide buildout much more like the GM of a National Football League team–you were going after stars and thinking about filling your needs with pros. The guides have become a draw.
Yeah, it’s been much more of a sports team model than a guide team. I wanted to build the team around harmony and teamwork, and that was a tricky thing to navigate, because you can’t do it too quickly. You have to do it soundly with a strong foundation, and it started with Percy Darville. He warmed up to the idea of us bringing a couple of guys from off the island to try and elevate the program. I think that was really key and Percy had to warm up to that. Once he started building relationships with Travis and Freddie–and we had another very young talented guy named Showndre David from Bimini who worked with us our first year–everyone could see how much knowledge and information he was able to pass on to these guys. The whole team became very committed to being better men and fishing guides. Instead of all these individuals just going out and doing their thing, we had a lot of chemistry and connection. Now, there’s a lot of sharing. These guys have each other’s back. I have their back. They have my back. I think that all adds up to better days on the water with clients.
What were the guide characteristics and human values you were mining for?
Travis, as an example, I already had fished with and knew his reputation, but he was checking up on me, just as I was checking up on him. We even checked up on each other with some of the same people, which was hilarious. So, that was pretty cool. At the end of the day, it’s pretty simple: are you fun but also driven when you’re on the boat? I think those are the two qualities that we’re looking for. And for folks that know they can get better, I think that’s also important. I think it’s good to be confident as a fishing guide, but it’s also great to know that you’re never going to be perfect and you’re always taking responsibility for how your day goes. It’s not, “Man, my guy couldn’t get the fly out of the boat.” Well, how do you create something magical and coach this guy in a way that hasn’t been done before? You should always be putting these challenges back on yourself. You’re not carrying the client’s burden, but you are carrying the responsibility of a fishing guide. And as one of the best in the world, you have to massage these days into something special and almost create opportunities out of thin air. I’m always looking for some of those X factors, but not everybody can be that way.
Travis has a stronger personality. Percy and Freddie are more mellow. Chester is fired up and driven–he’s younger in his guiding career. LJ is another one of our guides who’s 25 years old–he’s a young phenom talent, mellow and doesn’t put pressure on people. If you’re looking at all these personalities and trying to pull them together around a common goal, that’s the fun part–everyone getting along and having a blast. The guides, more often then not, come to the lodge at the end of each day, teaching clients how to cast on our casting platform, even though they just spent all day on the water. It’s a daily occurrence with the guides, them hanging around with our guests and wanting to be there. That’s really what our clients feel and say resonates. That’s the intangible that keeps them coming back.
The old western guide/client archetype is a very binary relationship: I’m the working guide, you’re the paying client, and I’m here to tell you what to do. But when it doesn’t work, there are failures on both ends, right? The guide’s not able to communicate in a way that the client can hear, the client is seizing up on the front of the boat and can’t make the cast and the whole thing just goes to hell. Over time, the binary nature of this relationship has to evolve into more a team-oriented concept. You’re working together. Of course the guide is finding the fish, but there has to be a way that he or she is also dealing with the deficiencies of the angler, or the things they excel at, and try to get them to a moment. I’ve been on the front of a tarpon skiff and heard the screaming and theatrics–I get it, but it’s also not getting you anywhere. You have to evolve, if you want to draw more out of people. The anglers are going to have better experiences, they’re going to be more successful if you work with them in constructive (and instructive) ways.
Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s very few learners out there who view yelling as a motivator. I know it’s not for me at all. I want positivity. I want optimism. I want to believe. It’s so important for me and everyone working at Soul Fly to know exactly who we are and what we’re doing at the lodge and brand. This way, I can be very clear in our marketing and in one-on-one conversations with clients about what we are and what we’re not. If I’m talking you out of coming to our lodge, because the fit isn’t right, I’m doing my job.
I want all the guides, the lodge staff and myself to have sturdy relationships with our guests and build a high propensity for repeatability. We’ve seen trips succeed, and we’ve seen trips fail. Some things are in our control, some things are out of our control. But generally, it just comes down to: is the client a right fit or not? I also want our team to have the best time doing their jobs. I feel a lot of responsibility for sending them people that are going to be the right fit in the first place. And this is all about word of mouth. I feel like that’s the core of our strategy, and it’s easier said than done, but it really has to live inside of every decision you make. This is the long-term thought process of the business.
It feels consistent with your ethos that you picked a location with fairly challenging fishing relative to the other destinations your guests could travel to. I know it’s clichéd, but the Soul Fly experience feels more about the total experience.
Saltwater fly fishing trips are just hard in general. It’s a tricky sport we’ve all picked to participate in, and you have to remind yourself that reality isn’t the highlight reel you see on Instagram. Reality is that you’re dealing with so many elements that can make or break your day and trip. If you want to have fun on every trip, it’s a good idea to adjust your expectations. Let’s say you book four trips, and that might be something like $30,000, you might get one good week out of it–where the weather and wind all line up. And I haven’t even talked about your skill level or whether you’ve been practicing beforehand.
A lot of folks want to know what flies have been working, but I don’t care as much about flies as an angler myself. I care about presentation. I care about my tactics. These fish are keying on hundreds of different things. But if you didn’t cast your fly rod for 12 months and you come down and have this expectation of catching 20 bonefish (we’ve got a big bonefishery), it’s not going to happen. You have to be on your game.
There are days people catch fish and it all comes together, but as you know, it’s not always that way. The biggest thing people can do if they want to be more successful: ignore most of the gear preparations and simply work on your cast. Unfortunately, that’s the hard stuff. There aren’t a lot of shortcuts with your cast. You have to put in the work.
This is an idea we touched on a little earlier, but it seems important that anglers are more involved in the “participation” of their experience–have you spent any time preparing for this trip, mentally, physically and working through your cast? No one is going to deliver the fly for you.
I think you bring up such a great point of participating in your own experience, because the boat is always a team. The whole experience is about teamwork. Our guides want to hear from the clients–what they want to do, how they like to be coached, what works and what doesn’t. You have to be incredibly active in participating in your own experience. All the while, you’re also respecting the craft of the guide–I’m not going to tell my guide we’re going permit fishing when it’s raining and blowing 30 mph. You have to trust your guide to make the right decisions that have your best interests in mind. We keep a sticker right in the cockpit of all the boats–the keys to success at Soul Fly–and everybody gets to look at it. A lot of it is really about communication. Of course, you have tactics and techniques, but communication is paramount.
Every client is a little (or a lot) different and you have to meet those needs the best you can–that has to be one of the core challenges of the business?
Absolutely. I think there’s a lot of importance in understanding your client, because for some people, this is going to be a meditative experience for the week and they’re going to be deeply connected. For others, all they want is a cooler full of beer and they’re out there with their buddies and they’re goofing off and not looking for fish. That’s going to be a different experience. Unless these folks are really sharpened anglers, maybe they’re going to catch less fish. But, you know, that’s okay. Everybody is out there to have different experiences, and the guides from the lodge are there to support a myriad of different approaches to this sport.
I get that a lot of busy folks are not going to be casting a couple days a week for a month before they get to the lodge–it’s just not feasible with how busy many people are. But there should be an understanding that the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. At the end of the day, it’s all about expectations.
One of the things we don’t really do very well as an industry is drill down on the concept of repetition–how many casts does it take on the front of a flats skiff to get good? I don’t know what the number is, but it’s a lot. Every angler has to work through that progression. You keep making mistakes until you stop making them. But it takes a long time to do that, and practicing speeds the learning curve up, right? You don’t want to be working on your learning curve with a 25-pound permit coming in…
It’s so interesting–if you show up as a prepared angler, you’re also going to get a different level of talent out of your guide. Your fishing experience is going to be dictated by how you fish. For anglers that have trouble getting past 25 or 30 feet and want to go permit fishing, the guides probably are going to show you a couple of fish, but they’re not going to show you 30. They’re going to give you a couple chances, but again, coming back to pressure and how we work these fisheries, your shots are incredibly important. Every time you have an interaction with a fish, it’s extractive whether you catch it or not. I think the guides are always working hard to put people in special scenarios and situations, and they’re always willing to do a lot of teaching. But that’s one area where the angler has a lot of control–your mindset when you show up, and your sharpened skills when you show up prepared.
A lot of people spend real money to go on these trips. And that’s absolutely the service that Soul Fly and all these other fishing lodges are here to provide. But if you’re looking to turn the dial up on your experience, being prepared shows the guides, “Oh, man, we got something special we could do today.” And that’s a pretty cool thing. It’s about believing in the team that you’ve assembled for the day.
It reminds me of that old hockey adage–the guys that are “lucky” make their own luck. What it comes down to is hard work. Dino Ciccarelli didn’t record over 1,200 points in the NHL because he was a better skater or more talented than the Gretzkys and Lemieuxs of the world. He was just willing to camp in front of the net, grinding and deflecting shots. People always talk about hockey in terms of it being a lucky sport, but it’s really not about luck at all. It’s just a million moments of intentional, physical action and discipline. You keep doing one thing over and over and over. You make your own luck. You put yourself in a position for something to happen. And fishing is very similar in that way. Are you on your phone? Are you daydreaming? Are you hung over? There’s at least 50 things that are going to impact the day you have. And it all adds up to how many shots you’re going to get, or even manifest, and whether you can execute when it matters.
Absolutely. It’s all about being the man or woman in the arena. You have to show up, and then anything can happen.
Can you talk a little more about how the guides are managing their days on the water? I know you’ve talked about how all fishing is extractive–what does a Soul Fly experience look like?
For starters, how do we describe the fishery? We think the “catching” is going to be quality over quantity. There are a lot of bonefish, permit and other cool fish to target in The Berry Islands, but they’re older, they’re mature, they’re smart, they’re wise. While it’s a privilege to see these larger-than-average bonefish, they have a lot of experience–these are the home flats they’re on, day in, day out, and they understand we’re a threat to them. How that translates to the fishing is pretty simple–instead of sitting on a bonefish school that maybe you could catch three, four, five, or six fish out of, maybe you stop after one or two. And you’re very careful with how you fish those schools. You fish them from being further back. You try to push them with the boat less and less. You try to be very stealthy.
If sharks show up, it really should be game over–shark predation is an issue with almost every lodge in the Caribbean. Every guide in the Florida Keys deals with it as well. I think it’s more about how you fish your opportunities and how we define “how much” we need on the water. You were talking earlier about trout fishing days with people catching 60 fish–do you really remember fish number 39 and 46? I don’t think that matters. I know it doesn’t really matter to me as a trout fisherman. Being able to have different experiences with lower numbers of bigger fish–to me–is going to mean a lot more than catching a bunch of smaller fish.
And we feel the same way with the bonefishing–we really want to be careful and catch two or three special fish. Let’s learn a lot along the way. Let’s get a couple permit shots. Maybe there’s a mutton snapper you’re firing at. Maybe you’re doing something totally different. I think that’s a great day and I think that’s, honestly, kind of a reasonable approach–that’s a perfect Berry Islands day. There are days where people catch more bonefish than that. There are days people get skunked. I think that’s the reality in every fishery. But I think putting some limits on yourself and understanding, how much do we really need? Because if we all want to keep participating in this sport for years to come, this is the stuff we have to be thinking about.
This kind of thinking is definitely a younger mentality for the fishing guides, but they are doing a really good job of getting to a different spot. Our job is to show people all the different ways we can interact with the resource, so they look back on their day and think about all these cool experiences, instead of sitting on a single school and racking up the numbers. That’s the mentality we talk about, but if all your guides are safeguarding and hoarding their information, it’s pretty hard to accomplish. On the other hand, if the guides are open and talking about where they fish, and where they didn’t fish, we can get a lot closer to realizing these goals.
We also have a GPS on every single boat, so we can look back on the week and say, “Wow, we spread out and that’s fantastic.” Other times, the weather is going to pin you down. If it blows 25 mph, we’re, obviously, going to have a lot less spots that we could fish. But we’ve got the data with our GPS tracking system, which is instructive and helpful. It’s all about working the resource the right way and continuing to evolve.
Are these resident fish that you’re trying not to train, or are they migratory fish that push in for a few days or weeks, then leave? I’m wondering about the behavioral information they’re passing through the schools, or genetically when they breed.
Great questions, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that, and there’s both. There are some fish that are super habitual and they’re going to be doing a very similar thing every day. The bonefish have some seasonal exchange–with different year classes of fish on the flats–and that generally happens after the winter. Sometimes, the smaller fish are harder to find, and the larger fish are easier to find. We had a cold snap in February and the water got pretty cold. All of the fish left to stay safe–they would’ve died if they stayed in the shallow flats. So, they went to deeper, warmer water, and when the fish came back, we had a lot of new fish that were mixed in. So, weather events are going to cause some exchange.
It’s the same with the permit fishery. There are some days you’re wondering, “Where did all these fish come from?” And then some days you’re thinking, this feels like some of the regular crowd. In general, I think the “regular crowd” fish are always the hardest fish. They are absolute experts. That brown trout that’s been living under a cutbank for the last eight years–he’s a smart fish. We have some of that with the permit. There are a couple of spots where you’re going to see a few fish that are over 30 pounds. But they’ll be very hard to catch. Or you might run into a fresh school–literally coming straight off the reef and who knows how they got there, and how long they’re going to stick around. But different times of the year can cycle the fish, so you do get the exchange. But there definitely is that resident versus migratory conversation all the time, and we’re always paying attention to it.
As far as the schools go, they are as smart as the first fish that’s going to spook. There are a lot of eyeballs in a school, but luckily, we do get a number of singles and doubles, especially with the permit–small group type of stuff. With the bonefish, we get a mix of it all. I think in most fisheries, the fish are pretty aware that we’re a threat. On cold front days, where you’ve got shifting weather, that puts all the fish on edge. That’s when their senses are heightened. When you have nice, stable weather days, the fish can let their guard down–they want to be happy on the flat and feeding without distractions. You can tell they’re really looking down and engaged in feeding. Those are the times that fish make mistakes.
You can see that pretty clearly with permit–when they’re fired up and out hunting. That’s the time you want to drop the fly real close, because they’re not looking 10, 15 feet away. They’re really tuned in. And you notice other days where the fish have much longer sight lines, when they’re much more aware of their surroundings. Weather absolutely is a factor in all these different fisheries–how are the fish operating? How susceptible will they be to making a mistake?
Can you talk a little bit about permit-on-stingray fishing scenarios? I’m assuming the rays are kicking up shrimp and crabs? (This behavior is an example of commensalism, or opportunistic foraging, where the permit gets easy meals while the stingray remains unaffected.)
Yeah, it can be one; it could be two. And I’ve seen as many as six on a single stingray. It’s a great angler opportunity. It’s really common in a lot of different fisheries. Even up here on the striper flats in Maine we have horseshoe crabs–the striped bass will follow them when they’re kicking up shrimp and smaller crabs. So, it’s always worth checking sharks, stingrays, any of those–you might have a cobia riding on a shark; you might have a permit with a shark; you might have a bonefish with a stingray. Percy, our head guide, hooked a 40-pound Cubera Snapper off the back of a stingray. There are so many of these symbiotic relationships in the different fisheries that are pretty cool. And they are 100% there to feed.
Can you talk about the community you’ve built in The Berrys and around your lodge?
This might sound a little silly, but of course, we exist for our clients to come down and fish, but I think if we can put our staff and team first and have them supported in ways they need to be supported–maybe that’s mental health, maybe that’s helping with medical bills for one of their kids, maybe it’s renting an apartment–then they’re in a much better position to thrive in this job. If we can settle our focus there, the clients really feel that and the approach strengthens and bonds us as a team. When you’re putting your staff and team first, you really are putting your clients’ best interests first.
We also try to connect our clients with these different opportunities with the staff and community. All of our incoming clients get a small description of the high needs on the island. And we’ve had a number of clients actually thank us. They want to be asked. They want to connect. If they come to the lodge and don’t see anything else in the community or have any other exposure to the real world of an out island in The Bahamas, I feel like there’s a disconnect. But if you’re able to shine some light on these opportunities, it goes a long way towards connecting the clients with providing support (donations or other items). All of these efforts strengthen the connection to this place.
For instance, there’s been a couple of fires on the island where homes have burned down, and people lost everything. Our clients, the lodge and team have come together with donations (clothes, money etc.) and folks have gotten back on their feet. We actually hired one of these young men who lost everything, and not only did we get to help and support him through donations about a year ago, now he’s on the team. He’s back on his feet and doing really well. These are things that the community sees–that Soul Fly isn’t just here to catch fish, make money and send it back to the U.S. I know we are trying to keep as much of our revenue on the island, reinvesting in the lodge, reinvesting in the community. And that all adds up to something the clients feel–maybe this is something bigger than a fishing lodge and deeper than catching fish.
At the end of the day, fishing can be fairly trivial, but if you can build depth and meaning to the experience, I think the fish gods will generally smile on us. And, honestly, it’s much more satisfying to think about everybody else, and not just yourself, particularly on the sustainability side. We’ve added solar panels to the lodge, and we’re getting off the diesel generator, or at least trying to reduce our reliance on the diesel generator on the island–that was a huge investment. It’s just a bunch of smaller decisions that all add up–reducing our waste, picking the right vendors to work with, decisions like no plastic and investing in a water system that filters and treats our drinking water, putting more time into our garden. These are all small things that, hopefully, reduce our carbon footprint. It’s hard and expensive and you do need to leave enough margin so you can reinvest in this challenging business, because engines are always breaking, windows are falling apart and there’s always something high on the list when something breaks. That’s the constant balance on the sustainability side. It’s something we always talk about at staff meetings and everybody’s bought in. It will always be a priority for our investments from a labor standpoint and for what we’re putting back into the lodge. It’s been hard, but also an aspirational process.
To finish up, where do you see the lodge and brand evolving in the next ten years?
With the Soul Fly brand, we’ve taken a big step into the event space. We just produced our first event in Charleston, South Carolina. A lot of the thinking was about the small size of our lodge (we can only take eight guests), and that, ultimately, excludes a lot of people. So, we are thinking about how we can engage more people into Soul Fly experiences. My partner Alec Griswold is heading up our events division, and we just had 1400 people come out to Charleston. We booked some great live music. We did some fun fly fishing activations during the day and then we jammed out to some awesome music at night: Mountain Grass Unit, The Stews, Leon Majcen and Bandito, which is Paul Puckett’s band. It was a good time pulling community together around art and environmental advocacy. The Charleston Waterkeeper was our nonprofit partner, and I want to say we were north of $25,000 in donations generated in just a couple days.
Next up, we’re going to be doing Soul Fly Boston on September 12th–Patagonia is going to be a title sponsor and ASGA (the American Saltwater Guides Association) is going to be a nonprofit partner alongside Elevate Youth, which is a great organization in Boston that gets kids outdoors. I think that’s definitely what we’re focusing on right now at Soul Fly.
I also just came back from a trip in The Bahamas and seeing new water always makes me excited about new lodge ideas, but you have to be incredibly thoughtful when thinking about those kinds of growth opportunities.
The event side of the business will continue to grow, and we’re always thinking about ways to not become complacent with the lodge. I have to make sure we are continuing to grow, but in the right ways. We’ll be doing some week-long retreats with writers and fly tyers in our 2026-2027 season, as additional ways to add depth to that experience. And, of course, we’re always focused on how we grow and strengthen the guide team.
We’re taking our whole guide team to the Florida Keys at the end of October for some professional development. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to fish with some fantastic guides from the Florida Keys, and everyone will be there to listen and learn. As you know, the guides in The Bahamas end up on their own islands, and they don’t have the benefit of being able to move around the U.S. and have all these different fishing interactions. It’s going to be really cool for us to get off the island, hang out with some killer talent, share stories and learn from each other.
We’ve got a lot on the Soul Fly horizon and all we’re thinking about is evolving the lodge and brand.
This is a journey that never ends…
Overlooking the east side of Great Harbour Cay and a short distance from an idyllic Bahamian beach, Soul Fly Lodge sits about a mile north of what Travel & Leisure calls the 13th most beautiful beach in the world. Located in The Berry Islands, Bahamas, the lodge caters to fly fisherman, pursuing bonefish, permit, triggerfish, mutton snapper and barracuda. The guides, staff and hosts are all experts in their craft with decades of experience.
As a Flylab member or Substack subscriber, when you book a trip with Soul Fly Lodge, Soul Fly will donate $250 to the Great Harbor Cay community.
As a paid Flylab member, you’ll receive three hand-tied flies to be redeemed at the lodge and a private casting lesson with one of the talented Soul Fly Lodge guides or managers, like Travis Sands, on their dedicated casting course. Contact Soul Fly Lodge directly at soulflylodge@gmail.com or through their contact form.
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