About your Alaska Hunting Guide

Joey Klutsch (Master Guide #228215 – Katmai/Aniakchak Guide Service)

Joey Klutsch
Master Guide #228215

My name is Joey Klutsch. I am the owner of Katmai/Aniakchak Guide Service and live in King Salmon with my wife Crystale and our two kids, Joey and Stormy. I have been guiding my entire life. I am a second generation guide and grew up in the big game guiding profession working alongside my dad, Joe Klutsch who began his Alaska guiding career in the early 1970s. I was extremely fortunate to learn so much from him, and my mom, over the years, and they are a big reason why I have had so much success. My dad didn’t just teach me about hunting and guiding – he taught me work ethic and relentless determination. These traits carry over well into guiding.

I have lived my entire life in bush Alaska, in remote Bristol Bay where I hunt, fish, trap, and guide fishermen and hunters. At age 10, I took my first caribou and by age 16 I had harvested my first Brown Bear – a life changing event for me. After that, I was hooked on hunting bears and guiding in general, where I could really challenge myself by helping others hunt. Upon turning 18, I qualified for my Assistant Guide License

I attended college in Fairbanks but always knew I was meant to be a guide, and that is exactly what I did each spring and fall before and after school started – guide spring brown bear and caribou or sheep in the fall, as well as fall bear when I could take the fall semester off college. In 2009 I earned my Registered guide license, which I would have gotten far sooner had I not been enrolled in college. By that point, I was guiding for over half the year, between Kodiak, the AK Peninsula, and the Brooks Range.

In 2012 I founded Aniakchak Guide Service and shortly thereafter won through a competitive prospectus bid a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Use Permit in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and one in Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge, where I operate in sole guide use areas. In 2017 I was fortunate enough to earn yet another sole guide use area on the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge. In addition to running my own areas and business, I continued working with my dad full time in his business, and being his lead guide on Kodiak, up until his death in 2024, when I took on his Aniakchak Preserve, AK Peninsula NWR, and Kodiak NWR areas.

Guiding has given me a great appreciation and respect for wild places and the fish and game species that inhabit them. My business motto of “Wilderness Fair Chase Hunts” reflects this. All of my hunts are conducted 100% fair chase, using the highest ethical standards – and always with respect to the wildlife. It is my goal to lead you on a true adventure hunt, the way hunters used to experience Alaska, teaching you along the way about the land, the fish and wildlife species, and the mission/ goals of the National Wildlife Refuges & Park Preserves in Alaska.

I make 3 guarantees to my hunters:

I look forward to hunting with you and showing you Alaska the way it was meant to be experienced.

Joe Klutsch – 1947 to 2024
Master Guide #91
Founder of Katmai Guide Service

Joe was born and raised in the small town of Wheatridge, Colorado, where he grew up hunting, fishing, playing sports, and doing other outdoor activities. He first came to Alaska, from Colorado, back in 1972 with his wife Carol, my mom. He initially worked construction on pipeline housing. He was drawn to Alaska because many of the places in Colorado he grew up hunting and fishing were being developed, and he wanted to escape the influx of people that was happening at that time. Within a couple of years of coming to Alaska, my mom and dad had relocated from Palmer to King Salmon, where he had accepted a job as a packer for a guide out there. He quickly began working his way up, and was hired by other outfitters as well. Gary LaRose Sr. and Jack Lewis were the two outfitters who mentored my dad the most, and to whom he worked for primarily and earned his assistant guide license in short order. These individuals taught my dad more than any others about the guiding business, and he spoke very highly of both of them, often recalling stories from the old days.

Guiding was a perfect fit: After all, he came to Alaska out of his love for the outdoors. His guiding schedule quickly filled up and he began to hunt and fish guide full time, starting with Dall sheep in the Wrangle Mountains in August, moose on the Alaska Peninsula in September, followed by Brown Bear and caribou, and then onto Kodiak for brown bear and Sitka blacktail deer. For many years, he would spend winters in his hunt area on the Alaska Peninsula, living in a small cabin, trapping wolves, beaver, fox, otter, and wolverine on the Meshik. In those days fur prices were very high. It was a difficult but rewarding way to earn a living, in addition to his hunting and sport fish guiding.

My dad founded his business, Katmai Guide Service in 1976, and starting out taking fishermen on the Naknek River. After earning his Registered Guide license, he gradually took on several guide areas of his own on the Alaska Peninsula in 1982, as his mentor Jack Lewis that he had worked for retired. Eventually, he acquired an area on Kodiak Island as well in 2007, after another good friend and fellow outfitter Rob Holt, retired from guiding.

In 1995 my dad earned his Master Guide license. Over the years he received several awards, including the Safari Club International Outstanding North American Professional Hunter in 1996, the Dallas Safari Club Outstanding International Professional Hunters Award in 1998, Wild Sheep Foundation Frank Golata Outstanding Outfitter Award in 2000, and was honored to receive the Alaska Professional Hunters Association’s Simon-Waugh Award in 2017, and finally the Governor’s Conservationist of the Year Award in 2023.

My dad saw many changes in the guiding industry over his career, and had an instrumental part in making many of the positive ones happen, far too lengthy to go into for the sake of this biography. He worked tirelessly advocating for the guiding profession up until he died. He had the honor of serving as the president of the Alaska Professional Hunters Association (APHA) for many years. APHA was a huge part of his life. His contributions to the organization and to the guiding profession will not be forgotten.

Through the years he always remembered how none of his guiding career would have been possible without my mom, and how important she was to his success. My dad loved the guide profession more than anything. As he got older, people would often ask him when he would retire, and he would always joke that he would never retire. He never did, and died just shy of 77 years old, still doing what he loved. I am honored to have learned from a true legend in the guiding industry, to now hold his guide areas, and to carry on the tradition.