Fishing guides are the hardest working folks in the fishing industry. Each year, we budget one guided day on the river, most often float trips, though last year we did a wade trip on the Madison. We’ve accumulated a modicum of experience with fly fishing guides. And we’ve learned a ton about how to fish. However, the guides have also taught us a few things about ourselves. In this episode, we reflect on what the great fishing guides have taught us about our own aspirations and fly fishing chops.
Listen now to “What Fishing Guides Have Taught Us about Ourselves”
Great Stuff from Our Listeners. At the end of each episode, we often include a feature called “Great Stuff from Our Listeners.” It’s the last segment of each episode, where Steve reads one of the comments from our listeners or readers. We enjoy hearing from you, and appreciate your advice, wisdom, and fly fishing experiences.
Do you ever use fly fishing guides? What have you learned from them? Or, what what they taught you about yourself?
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The Fly Fisher’s Book of Lists
We’ve published a book for regular-Joe-and-Jane fly fishers called The Fly Fisher’s Book of Lists: Life is short. Catch more fish.
One person who purchased the book called it “cliffsnotes for fly fishers.”
To switch metaphors, perhaps it’s more like a handful of potato chips. It’s an entire book of lists. The goal is to help you find practical help quickly and in an easily digestible format!
Buy it today on Amazon for only $15.99!
I take a guide trip every couple years- what always interest me the most with a guide is watching them tie knots. The best guide will take a simple blood knot and make it a simple knot with no third hand. They will show you, watch you and know when to “let you fish” by tying it your self!
Ah yes, I envy the speed and skill with which most guides can tie their knots! Honestly, the guides we’ve had haven’t stopped to teach us how to tie a particular knot. They want to keep us fishing. But I have been in fly fishing classes where the instructor has worked with us on our knot-tying skills. Sometimes, we’ve used a rope to learn a knot. It’s easier than using a tiny tippet!
One of the things that strikes me about current fly fishing guides is how many skills they have to have beyond fishing. If you spend some time talking with guides, you’re just as likely to hear about instagram accounts and web marketing as you are about fly selection and dead drifts. I know one young guide who has built up quite thriving small business, he has several guides working for him and he’s making sure everyone is having a good time. His work doesn’t stop when he puts the drift boat up on the trailer.
Great point, Bob! It takes a diverse skill set to be a guide today. And it helps to be an entrepreneur. Good guides pay attention to the little details–all of them.