Warrior Sportsmen Get A Fishing Trip Of A Lifetime On The Nush
Thank you, veterans! As we celebrate this holiday and honor those who have served, check out our November cover story. The following appears in the November issue of Alaska Sporting Journal:
BY CHRIS COCOLES
If Alaska fishing lodges could talk, you wouldn’t be stunned if they couldn’t stop blabbering about … well, the fish.
After all, the Last Frontier is first and foremost an angler’s yellow brick road, his treasure of the Sierra Madre, her Maltese Falcon – the “stuff that dreams are made of” for fishermen who dream of landing massive numbers of salmon while sharing a remote river in one of the world’s most remote places with bears and who knows what else.
Of course, Fish The Nush has its own fish tales to swap. But there’s a spot within owner Pete von Jess’s waterside nirvana in Bristol Bay that can hold its own for compelling dinner party conversation. Von Jess calls it the “Team Room.”
For a week every summer, the Team Room hosts a special collection of visitors who head north to the lodge, formerly known as Nushagak River Adventures. Von Jess, a retired US Army Special Forces colonel, started a tradition at his lodge called Warrior Week, when fellow Green Berets are treated to a fishing and bonding adventure of a lifetime.
And one of the first places these VIP guests check out after flying into the lodge? The Team Room. An American flag greets visitors to Fish the Nush when they arrive via floatplanes, but when it’s Warrior Week, Old Glory has a companion banner when the Green Berets land.
“We put up the Special Forces flag when they’re with us. When they come off the airplane, the first thing they notice is the flag, and then the second thing they notice is the Team Room,” von Jess says.
The Team Room’s decor includes a US military challenge coin collection that von Jess has collected over the years from his own Special Forces background. There are also ball caps adorned with pins from the various units that have participated in this program, which means so much to von Jess and the rest of the Fish the Nush family, several of whom have also served in the military over the years.
Besides the nostalgia of the memorabilia that serves as an impromptu museum, if not time capsule of past guests who participated in Warrior Week, the Team Room represents so much more.
“They know it’s home,” von Jess says. “Inside, there’s a whole wall of Green Beret stuff and there are little mementos from the last 10 years. They know it’s their Team Room. They become very comfortable right off the bat, which is good. And after they’re comfortable and well fed and we go on a little fishing trip, they come back with smiles.”
And those smiles are what makes this program so important for von Jess and the Green Beret soldiers who have experienced Bristol Bay’s fishing via the nonprofit organization von Jess and two Special Forces buddies founded together. Von Jess understands what the military participants’ needs are to make an Alaska trip to the lodge so therapeutic. He was one of them.
COLONEL PETE VON JESS spent 22 years in the Army Reserve, and while in Special Forces he was deployed internationally in places like Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia and Honduras. He knows what Green Berets have endured while in uniform, including those who have seen heavy combat.
“I get it … I can see the stress and I can see the tension amongst those who were in there kicking the doors open,” von Jess says. “And I can do something about it, and that’s why we invented this program.”
In the mid-2010s, von Jess went to Bristol Bay for fishing trips at Nushagak River Adventures. One trip coincided with fellow guests who would change his life.
“At the same time I was there, there were a couple of wounded warriors from the Marine Corps. Both of them had lost their legs. They were from the Explosive Ordnance Unit. They lost (their legs) when they were dismantling IEDs,” von Jess says. “They were up there with prosthetic legs and were helping each other around, doing their thing. I just took note of it and said, ‘What a great idea.’”
The next year, when he returned to the lodge, von Jess offered to sponsor the soldiers’ visit, and when the then owners said the US Marine Corps nonprofit footed the bill for them to fish in Alaska, he was told he could sponsor a future trip for other veterans, which meant two more could experience it.
That lasted about two years before the lodge’s previous owners went bankrupt following the 2016 season and left employees unpaid. After some encouragement, von Jess eventually bought the lodge himself (see last December’s issue for more).
“Once I bought it, I decided I was going to keep the (service members’ fishing) program that was going on. So for the first year, in 2016, I continued the same program and it was pretty much, at that point, a combined IED and Explosives Ordnance Device (program) and for anyone else that was injured,” he says.
It’s no surprise how inspired von Jess was by the veterans who had a Fish The Nush experience: one without an arm, another who lost a leg below the knee. Von Jess and two of his Team A colleagues, Ron Baldwin and Doug Frank, worked together to come up with an idea to start an organization while they were at Fish The Nush together.
Two of the Special Forces soldiers who’d previously visited the Nushagak lodge were solicited to design a logo for this venture to expand what they’d already been building towards.
“When we were doing this, it dawned on us and we started a conversation of, Why not create a not-for-profit? And to do what we’re doing by sponsoring veterans and making it Special Forces veterans, because they’re on the pointy end of the spear all the time,” von Jess says.
And for a longtime Army man who made quite a successful career out of his time in the armed forces, combined with a newfound passion for the Alaska fishing lodge life that drew him in, blending his new business venture with an admiration for vets made for a quintessential partnership for von Jess.
“I own a defense contractor government services firm and we donate money all the time to veteran organizations, so it was not out of the wheelhouse,” he admits. “But witnessing the joy … the concept of the happy place – everybody has some place that gives them joy, and in this case it’s that lodge, because of the fishability and that there are millions of salmon that go up the river. It’s not exactly shooting fish out of the barrel, but there are a lot of fish up there.”
Hence, Warrior Sportsmen was born thanks to the team’s collaboration (while on a pheasant hunting trip to South Dakota, von Jess, Baldwin and Frank designed a challenge coin for the organization).
After discussing it, von Jess, Baldwin and Frank had very specific reasoning for that name. They understood that the service members they’d be accommodating would be recovering from combat injuries. But in an era when terms like “wounded warriors” are commonly used, the Warrior Sportsmen moniker seemed to fit better with the guys’ mission.
“We don’t like the word ‘wounded,’ because some of our guys don’t like that terminology. There’s a whole lot of prestige – you can call it ego – but there’s a lot of prestige in what they do and the amount of training that they have, and even if they’re still doing it, they could have been Purple Heart guys,” von Jess says.
“So we look for folks who quite honestly just need to hit the reset button. Maybe they’re getting a little too loud at their home; maybe they just need a little break and need to be with some guys and talk about it if they want.”
Because von Jess is already chief operating officer of three other organizations, Frank became Warrior Sportsmen’s executive director, and they jointly operated as a not-for-profit organization for almost five years. Lieutenant General Francis Beaudette, who was the commanding general of the US Army Special Operations Command from 2018 to 2021, was brought aboard as president of the board for the nonprofit.
After running the organization as a standalone entity for a couple of years, Warrior Sportsmen’s leadership decided the program would be better served to be affiliated with one of the two Green Beret-led nonprofits, which turned out to be the Green Beret Foundation.
“The Warrior Sportsmen mission is to advance physical and emotional healing, provide camaraderie and mentorship, help transition heroes from the battlefield or long-term overseas deployments back to life at home, and develop fishing and hunting skills for lifelong enjoyment,” the organization’s website states.
WHEN THE SOLDIERS SHOW up at the lodge hard on the Nushagak River 40 miles upstream of Dillingham and Bristol Bay, von Jess knows he’s more host than miracle worker. These are hard-core Green Berets who have been through various forms of combat trauma – some worse than others.
Nobody at Warrior Week is under any pressure to open up about what happened on the battlefield. But after a couple days of perspective in the Alaskan bush, the mood can often swing.
“We’re not sociologists and we don’t probe, but usually what happens on a five-day trip is on day two you see them letting their guard down. And on day three, you can see they’ve exhaled.
And then you can start a dialogue about what’s on their mind,” von Jess says. “‘Do you need any help that you’re not getting? Which pressures are on you?’ They talk to each other.”
Von Jess refers to the scene as “Green Berets talking to Green Berets.” It’s also a case of Army veterans hosting other Army veterans. The founders of Warrior Sportsmen understand what being in the Special Forces requires of those select few who serve in those roles. Traumatic injuries are always a possibility when combat becomes extremely dangerous.
Frank also had assignments in Afghanistan, first arriving in the country’s second largest city of Kandahar in January 2002. In July of that same year, von Jess was also sent there.
“I have learned quite a bit about the PTSD problem through (Frank), and then I have basically applied whatever dose needs to be applied, because each person is different. They all have a common base point, which is the camaraderie of the group and the mission, and everything else is truly just getting back to nature, being in a non-threatening, non-probing, no-expectations (scenario). Just hit the off switch,” von Jess says.
“On day one I tell them, ‘Just hit the off switch. It will happen. I will tell you when it has happened and you’ll be breathing easier and you’ll be sleeping more comfortably, and you won’t be so rattled. By the time you leave here, you’re gonna be feeling like you want to stay another five days.’”
ONE OF THE KEY components for making Warrior Week run so smoothly is Kasey Robbins, a guide at Fish The Nush. Nobody in camp knows Green Berets better. Robbins was one of them.
An Oklahoma native, Robbins was in the Army for two decades as a Green Beret and infantry paratrooper. He too saw some heavy combat in his tours and was among Fish The Nush’s Special Forces guests who came up to Alaska for the Warrior Sportsmen program before he was hired by von Jess.
“Kasey was in one of our perfect scenarios, because he needed that trip,” von Jess says.
An experienced outdoorsman who also guides hunting trips in Colorado during Alaska fishing’s offseason, Robbins found purpose and a niche in Bristol Bay as a guide.
“It’s been very special to me, first being a client and loving it so much that I wanted to guide at Fish The Nush. I got to see both sides,” he says. “As a client I saw how things went with a great experience from the guides and from the staff. Now I get to be a part of helping others come out and get to enjoy the experience.”
Robbins is the go-to guy leading up to and throughout Warrior Week at the lodge (von Jess refers to him as “point man sponsor”). Recently, Robbins got a head start with a meet and greet with the Special Forces candidates who were chosen for a spot on Fish the Nush’s fishing excursion.
“I sent him on the airplane this last summer to meet with the guys the night before they all flew over as a welcome committee,” von Jess says. “He took them out to dinner. Kasey is the perfect contact and host. He brings the guys into the camp and we take care of them.”
Robbins takes pride in his role, both in helping his brothers and sisters load up on Bristol Bay salmon and making them feel comfortable on the long migration north given the circumstances of their service in the Army.
“To watch them start to relax by the second day is exactly what I felt,” Robbins says. “The welcoming environment and the thrill of the adventure doesn’t take long to set in, and I enjoy getting to see the huge smiles and laughter that come from them feeling totally comfortable. I completely understand where they are coming from. Not taking away from anyone else, but I’ve walked in those same shoes.”
AND ROBBINS ALSO HAS a unique perspective during that special week that his boss doesn’t get to experience – witnessing the joy of the participants getting into some of North America’s, if not the globe’s, best fishing.
Since von Jess doesn’t go out on the boats with Fish The Nush’s clients, he leaves the heavy lifting to his guide staff. He’s on the shore to launch all eight of his lodge’s boats, and he greets them back on dry land when the vessels beach on their return – usually within 15 minutes of each other – at the end of a long day.
“I meet them on the shore and help pull fish out of the boats. You see all their smiles and them telling stories of what happened that day,” von Jess says.
“When they’re on the boat, it’s not like what goes on in the boat stays on the boat, but sometimes it does. They’re talking to each other and those stories are not relayed again necessarily to the bigger group. But they’re talking to one another, and that’s where it starts.”
Robbins provided a little insight about getting a first-hand look at these Green Berets who have endured some of the worst moments anyone can imagine now experiencing the simple joy of reeling in a big fish. He too admitted that what happens on his boat stays on his boat.
“It’s great to see these guys catch fish. It doesn’t matter the size. From the time they hook until they reel it into the boat, every smile is a release of the armor they have built around themselves,” he says.
“It’s like you can see them let it all go, start to relax and have fun, and then they open up. It’s amazing because I know
I was the same way. I know how freeing that feeling is, because it’s how I felt when I first came up as a client. I didn’t want to talk; I was guarded.”
It’s incredible what a few days at a quiet fishing lodge will do for the soul.
ASKING VON JESS TO share his favorite story out of all the stories his Warrior Sportsmen journeys have spawned is indeed a difficult proposition – like parents singling out their favorite offspring. But one sticks with him to this day, even though this particular trip didn’t happen at the same time as the traditional Warrior Week activities.
“The Green Beret Foundation has a chapter in Cincinnati (Ohio). It’s pretty big and was formed by one of the parents of a fallen Special Forces guy from Iraq, a captain. They do a fundraiser every year and they raised a couple hundred thousand dollars each year during the Labor Day window. They asked me if I would donate a cabin so that they could auction
it off. Through that process, sometimes corporations will purchase it and they will send their own people, but sometimes it’s a family that will buy it because it’s open to whoever the highest bidder is.
“One time a corporation bought it and they donated it back to the Green Beret Foundation and they sent back the Green Berets. What we received were four guys who were on staff to help the Green Berets when they’re getting out with their medical records so that they could get what they should receive from the VA in disability pay. So they are guys who used to be on the pointed end of the spear and want to continue to give back. The four of them went into that cabin, and that was a lot of fun.”
And fun is what it’s meant to be for what von Jess, Frank and Baldwin set out to accomplish. They’ve hosted veterans
from as far back as the Vietnam War, which provides even more nostalgia for von Jess.
“They have the same bond. It’s different training; it’s different weapons; it’s different radios; it’s different tools nowadays from even when I was there and the generation before me. We’ve tried to put an end-to-end program together so that we can take care of all those generations, because once they’re together, they tell stories,” he says.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THAT week of fishing is up to individual participants, as camaraderie and reflection can only accomplish so much. They know it’s been a tough road in the past with at times an uncertain future. But what Warrior Sportsmen envisioned has come to fruition.
“Some of them are much more likely to make contact after the fact,” von Jess says. “Some of them go back into the bushes.”
Indeed, Warrior Sportsmen can’t solve the world’s problems in a week. But it’s all about the slow, steady healing process. With every day that goes by, rarely has von Jess not seen some form of cathartic progress by most, if not all, of his new friends chosen to participate in the program.
“We feed them a great dinner, they take a hot shower and start it all over the next day,” he says. “They’re sleeping two to four people in a cabin. Those guys who they did not know, now they know. And when they leave they have new friends.”
And that’s what makes it all worthwhile for von Jess, his Warrior Sportsmen partners and Fish The Nush staff members, who strive to provide a week the Green Berets will cherish – from the Team Room to the river and back again.
“I don’t take it for granted, because each year is a little different. Having the opportunity to give back is at least the same joy as watching it happen and unfold,” von Jess says. “Participating in that process, it’s an end-to-end great experience. It’s good for the soul.” ASJ
Editor’s note: For more information on Warrior Sportsmen and how to donate, go to greenberetfoundation.org/warrior-sportsmen. The lodge’s website is fishthenush.com.
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