The Guide: WHFF
At its best, the relationship between a guide and a steady client is one that can be rivaled only by something between marriage and brotherhood. By the time lunch ends and all the pleasantries are covered and played out, something about scanning water and landing tanks makes guys open up about all the stuff their wives have been telling them they should see a therapist over. I don’t know why it happens- but it does.
Guides are just like anybody else, a little more lude and decrepit. Sure. But mostly the same nonetheless- they crave satisfaction and competition. Just the same as when you're on a fishing trip with your buddies and play a little measuring contest when you get back to camp, your guides are doing the same.
Trust me when I say this, the guide wants you to catch that fish just as much, if not more, than you do yourself. Some fellas are wired to chase the adrenaline of line screaming from the reel, pulling the rod to the brink of snapping or saving the day. But behind every great angler on the bow of a raft, there’s some fishy S.O.B. meticulously analyzing every cast, strip, row, ripple, fluttering bug, and stomach rumble.
At some point, that guide made the decision to put the rod down. They get more out of putting their mind in the hands of a stranger and instilling years of trial, error, triumph, shit casts, and strip sets every time they say alright; now throw one right over there, than they do catching the fish or bagging the birds themselves.
As Brady (pictured) puts it, “You want to help foster a new passion” every time you take out a new client. The point of the trip can’t always be alright; get in, we’re gonna do nothing but reel in hogs all day. Especially with a client new to fly fishing, or fishing in general, the trip might be about getting the client the tools they can take home, work on, and come back to execute on the river- everybody will be better for it. And, of course, do some catching along the way.
“There’s a certain amount of trust that the client is putting in me,” Brady explains, and is not one to be taken lightly. There are plenty of ways folks spend their time and money, plenty of them with more tangible value than floating down a river looking for hard-fighting fish- just as there are plenty of careers with more stability and sense than being the guides for that. But we believe that when that choice is made, and dedication is made to it, that will pay off in ways that go far beyond what is hanging on the wall.
So come and give it a shot. As Brady puts it- we’ll throw ya in the deep end.
Published in Wesley Hodges Fly Fishing Newsletter
