Why guide?
Why guide? Why decide to take people fishing for money?
Well, it’s simple. To meet up with folks at the river, greet them, idly chit chat as you walk to the river, rig up, tell them where to cast, how to fish the lure just right….and not catch any fish and call off the trip early. Of course!
Years ago it would have torn me up. I would have sweated and fretted and ripped my flybox to pieces trying everything and anything under the sun because I had to get the client fish, after all…I was the guide.
“Well, we can fish together for the rest of the evening for fun if you like, but the charter is officially over and there will be no charge.” I said to my client. For an hour she had fished, well, previously productive water with previously very productive lures and flies with only one half hearted bite. Few people know the intense pressure a guide feels when caught in this circumstance, and if we are honest every last one of us has been there. For some reason, the river was shut down. It was early in the year, and the water was cold. I saw no fish activity and no fish, except one big smallmouth crusing in the shallows and it didn’t even give a look at anything we threw at it.
So I felt better immediately after cancelling. Then I noticed what a fantastic evening it was, how terrific the river and woods looked. I could more fully appreciate how genuinely nice of a person my client was. “It doesn’t seem fair”, she said in protest of my refusal to charge her. How different from the Walmart deal seekers I’m faced with often. Here’s a full charactered person who understands the value of other’s hard work. “I appreciate that, but it’s quality or nothing”, I said. “We’ll reschedule”. I went on to let the evening soak in, joyfully cast a flyrod, working on my Spey casting, not caring if a fish bit or not.
It strikes me that this is exactly why I guide. I’m compelled by a business arrangement to get out into fantastic settings with fantastic people, which if left up to my own devices I may opt to do something else. Guiding forces me to get out and live life in quality settings with quality people when I might chose to go home and sit on the couch and watch T.V. by myself. What a contrast of choices.
I’ll remember this. If an outing with a client is goes completely south, I’m going to relax, call it off, look around and thank God I’m blessed enough to be there. It’s my choice to be negative or positive. I’ll chose positive. Life’s too short. What’s the old saying? Oh yea, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.
Anyone thirsty?
