Captain Colin Hansen

I was four years old, standing at the edge of my grandparents' pond in Vermont, when I pulled up two fish on a single hook. That was the beginning.

I grew up fishing Charleston — the Wando off Daniel Island, the flats around Sullivan's, the oyster bars running down the ACE Basin to Edisto. I knew this water long before anyone paid me to run a boat on it. At fourteen I was mating on a sportfisher out of Tolers Cove. By twenty I had the deck of a ’65 Estrella in Nantucket. I still keep a rotation going: bonefish and permit in the Florida Keys, trout through the rivers of Colorado.

Then came NOLS, in New Zealand. Months at a stretch living out of a pack — sea kayaking the coast, backpacking through the mountains, learning the natural history of every place we moved through. That's where the respect came from. You don't spend that long going slowly through country without understanding how fragile it is.

Later I spent a few years guiding eco-tours out of Shem Creek, taking people out to read the marsh, name the birds, and understand the tides and estuary systems that make this place what it is.

That's still how I run a trip, wherever I am. I'm out there to put you on fish. But I won't run through grass that's holding water to save five minutes, and if birds are working a bank I'll give them room. Doesn't cost you a cast either way. It's just paying attention to what's around you — which, honestly, is half of how you find fish in the first place.

I've fished with total beginners, with professionals, and with every level in between. I'll meet you wherever you're at. What I care about is that you have a great day on the water and leave understanding a little more about how it fits together: the tide, the bait, the birds, the bottom.

I run a Mitzi Skiff, rigged shallow and set up for fly, and I fish it hard. When I'm not guiding, I'm chasing a swell. See you out here!

See the water