so you want to be a fishing guide?

I've found myself to be socially handicapped. If you ask my good friends, or even the sports I take out in my boat they would scream blasphemy. I never run out of stories or jokes in these circumstances. But when i take the lovely lady to the local watering hole or meet new people, its tough to get a word in. It's also not that I'm timid with new people. I always get stuck on one simple introductory question, "So what do you do (for a living)?"

I'm a fishing guide, a fly fishing guide at that. I'm not embarrassed. I absolutely love my job. The office views are great, and the gossip doesn't revolve around a broken copy machine but where the next caddis push is going to explode. The only screaming a guide will ever hear is from a Hardy fly reel, not an unrelenting superior. But its still a job.

When I lived in Missoula, MT the profession was very common. The morning commute was predominantly pick up trucks and drift boats. If a person wasn't a fishing guide, they were related or at least knew one. They knew the gig, its splendors and its spoils. Arkansas is a different case.

In my hometown of Fayetteville, guides are harder to find then putting a bead down on a late night snipe hunt. In Mountain Home, guides are prevalent, but more of the weekend warrior variety. If you throw the word "fly fishing" in the mix there's no telling what the civilian you are conversing with will say. I've had the follow up questions vary from "so how do you catch your flies" to "what does a fishing airplane look like".

Now this doesn't bother me so much. It's the follow ups like:

"So what's your real job?"

or

"People pay you to fish with them? That's awesome! I think I want to be a fishing guide."

So you want to be a fishing guide huh?

Here's the gig:

Hours:

Up at 4:00 am, prepping boats, checking flows, and putting together a couple game plans (always a plan B and C)

Pick the clients up at 7:30, and on the river by 8:00-8:30

Fish till 5:00 pm (seems like a normal blue collar gig so far)

Trailer the boat, drop the clients off at 6:00 pm

Wash the boat, fill the truck up and arrive at home 7:00 pm

Give the lovely lady a peck on the cheek, tell her you still remember what she looks like, shovel down the food the said saint has made for you 7:30

make the phone calls to all your clients for the next day about pick up times, food likes and dislikes, and of course "how's the fishing been?" always comes up. so if a guide has got a couple boats out the next day.....expect 8:30 (still not done)

Crank out a couple dozen flies. In Montana this isn't a big problem. Most fly companies gear a majority of their bug patterns to western hatches and rivers. But that is not the case in Arkansas. If you want to catch fish, you tie your own flies. we also fish a lot of 5 and 6x so at least a dozen or two to replace the break offs. 10:00 pm

Finally done!!! 18 hours later.....

Now its private time....talk to the Misses, make sure she still doesn't want to divorce you. Ask about her day, the bit every average Joe does.

This is the average day in the life of a fishing guide. This does not include the days that you stall out on your float to wait for a late hatch, or an evening streamer bite. If that happens add a couple hours to the day.

Still want to be a fishing guide? Its long hours but the job is still a cake walk right?

......wrong.

I love my job, but its no cake walk. I don't push papers, but I get hit with errant casts. I don't have to meet deadlines, but sometimes the fish are being stubborn. I don't have to work on excel, but I do untangle things more complex than an algorithm from a NASA Scientist.

Still want to be a fishing guide?

A guide not only catches fish, but is a jack of all trades. In any given day, a person in the trade can: pack a faulty trailer bearing, get a blind man to set the hook on a pod sipping #24 midges, repair Jack and Jill's marriage (when fishing with a dis functional couple), hold a piss bucket while an 82 year old fisherman relieves himself, act somewhat interested in a man's stamp collection for 9 hours, and somehow manage to catch a few fish.

That's my job, its tough, its gritty, and I love the ever living snot out of it. I love the comradery with the clients, I love the challenge of the new fisherman. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. There is one thing I don't enjoy, and that's having to explain what it is that I actually "do".