Month: January 2017

Climate Change is real.  I will not debate that with anyone.  If you can’t acknowledge its existence and its threat to future generations I don’t have a lot of patience for you.  It is personally the single most important issue for me.  I work in the outdoors.  I depend on cold clean water for my work, and I want my children to have a planet that is better than it is now.  Now…moving on.

It’s F’ing hot.  The summers are hotter and longer, and the winters are shorter but more intense.  Every few years we have a bad winter, and every few years we have a bad summer.  2015 was a shit year for water and anyone who depended on it for their livelihood, which is all of us…so ya.  Areas of our homewater heated to lethal degrees for aquatic life.  Small creeks and tributary streams dried up.  We lost fish, we lost invertebrates, damage we are still seeing today.  Everywhere you look there are no solutions.  Just deniers, more questions, and no movement on the issue.

As a young voter this is frustrating because the effects of climate change are alarming.  As a fly fishing guide the issue is a concern, as a father, an outdoorsmen, it is a core value to me…the environment.  Maybe it is because I live in the pacific northwest and I am able to see its effects first hand.  Rampant wildfires, low snow packs, hotter dryer summers, absurdly cold winters.  All the signs are there for even those that don’t understand basic science.  We are part of the problem and I want us to be part of the solution.  Now I’m not about to get into my opinions on how we should combat it on a national or even global level…but ya know…stop burning fossil fuels…and maybe something might change.  When I started delving into the issue back in college I found that there was no real solution.  The policy changes needed on a national level were to hard to put through due to the stranglehold of the oil industry on our economy, but there wasn’t a lot going on on a local levels because of lack of funding.  We were still learning about climate change and its effects while I was in school.  I remember it being a hot topic of discussion in many a science class.  I didn’t get a degree in science or anything, I just found sciency stuff intriguing and enjoyed getting easy A’s.  I’ve got an IT and Management degree and I am a fly fishing guide so figure that one out.

Being scientifically inclined, I began thinking about how a global problem could actually be fixed.  Especially when every one is talking doomsday scenarios instead of how to fix shit.  Early on in my fishing I began seeing the effects of climate change.  Those big ass cutthroat in the Teanaway aren’t there anymore for a reason.  As well as the bulltrout.  Years ago there weren’t as many organizations working in the field of conservation, but as climate change and its effects have become more of a problem, more organizations have popped up to facilitate a solution.  There are multiple conservation groups and their work is on the front lines of climate change.  If you dig science and seeing how the environment is all connected together man…hang out with some river conservationists.

Recently we’ve had the Paris Agreements, countries have made commitments to less fossil fuels and more renewable energy methods, just this past week Ireland began the process of divesting from all fossil fuel companies and turning to renewable resources.  That global change is coming.  I will see it in my lifetime.  But more needs to be done.  Recycling, reducing your personal and families carbon footprint, all these things help.  But more needs to be done.  So much damage has been done that we have to step out of the menial tasks of separating plastics and glass out, more than just conserving water.  We have to save things.  Go out of our way to make a contribution.  Hundreds of years of take and take, and more so than ever in the past 50 years, we can no longer just sit idle and wait it out.  Its time to give back.  If we want it to get fixed.

This works two fold.  One, we are giving more back to our home, the planet, gotta balance it all out, and two we are cultivating a culture of being mindful of our environment.  I see the lack of this culture all the time in the wild and public lands I visit and use to work.  Trash left…everywhere, lack of respect for damn near anything, did I mention trash, shotgun shells left, fishing tackle, pop bottles, beer cans, there is always something.  That needs to change.  It changes by teaching our children that littering makes you an asshole.  My kids know it, they call people assholes who litter, and they help their dad clean up after assholes all the time.  But I take it a step further.  I had the opportunity to get involved with one of these organizations that is working on the front lines.  A non profit that works more in depth with cold water conservation and in turn battling Climate Change.

I volunteer with Trout Unlimited.  Like a ridiculous amount of time.  But my job and how I live allows me to be able to do that.  I don’t make a lot of money, nor do I need a lot living small and simple with my family.  This allows me to chase my passions.  One of which is fly fishing and the pursuit of wild trout.  But the second and what has become a deep passion of mine these past few years…is conservation of cold water fisheries.  I am a Trout Unlimited Endorsed Guide which means I spread that message of cold water conservation and support it through my business.

Trout are my climate change barometer.  They let me know how we are doing.  Better than we were a few years ago I can tell you that.  Becoming involved with Trout Unlimited has given me access to all sorts of tools and weapons to use in the fight against climate change.  I get to work with real life scientists…and they are just as nerdy as you would think.  I get to listen to all sorts of experts, sit in on financial meetings that decided the fate of millions of dollars of grant money.   Money that goes towards massive projects that benefit our natural waterways and help alleviate the stress of climate change on our world.  People ask my input, I am able to contribute and develop partnerships with people who are all striving for the same things.  I am part of something.  A movement, one that spends its time in the forests and rivers of our public lands.  I give back more than I take.  A negative footprint.

I am not working on some far away river, this isn’t benefiting some other country, or state, no I am doing this right in my backyard.  Sometimes within a few hundred yards of my apartment.  Other times high in the mountains away from any sense of people.  I get my hands dirty working to better our public lands that I recreate and work in, for others, for my kids, for future generations.  It is incredibly fulfilling. And with everything going on right now in our country, volunteering…is something that will always be held in high regard among your fellow citizens.

“Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in”.

When I leave this world I want it to be better for it.  I want my children to not have to worry about a solution to this climate change crisis.  Instead I want them to enjoy their lives knowing that myself and others like me put forth the time and effort to fight climate change for them and set us on a path where we are mindful of the environment and our relationship with it.  Politicians and world leaders can continue to argue and deny facts.  They are of little consequence in the end, as they change every few years anyway.  But we as individuals are each given a set amount of time on this planet.  It is our duty to watch over it and leave it better for the next generation.  Climate Change will not be solved by massive policy changes, or sweeping renewable energy revolutions.  We have to change the way we think about the environment, we have to fight for it, and then safeguard it for generations to come.  It starts in your community, in your local public lands, talked about and discussed in your community meetings and at the coffee shop every morning.  Then you have to get involved in some way.  I battle climate change with conservation and science.  And I’m just a trout bum….What are you doing?

 

Tamarack

 

Trout Bums, Fly Fishermen, Feather Chuckers, Fly Anglers, whatever it is that you may be labeled on your homewater there are always a handful of those peculiar people that are just a little…too involved with it.  Take any western river (but really anywhere anglers chase fish with flies), from the Hoh to the Gallatin, from the Dechutes to the Elk River B.C. you will find those anglers that live that way of life so many of us seek and are envious of.

They come in all forms.  I’ve met many in my travels to trout filled places.  I remember when I was in Steamboat Springs and I was introduced to that Colorado mountain town hospitality at the local guide hang out.  Sunpies if I recall.  Amazing little bar and eatery.  Great sliders, loud and boisterous crowd the night we were there.  I remember talking with a handful of local guides from competing shops.  A thing they laughed off.  They didn’t compete, except how some guides will while riverside of course, but at the end of the day when the trip was over, the client back at the hotel, and the pressure was off, the guides were just colleagues.  Fellow river rats, trout bums united.  I was in Steamboat to pick up my Hog Island Drift Boat in order to chase my own dreams of becoming a guide.  I was ecstatic.  My own driftboat.  Telling these much older and seasoned gentlemen why I was in town was one of the coolest things of the trip.

There was no jesting, no jokes, no newbie bs, there was just a congratulations on a new boat, a welcome to the fold, and a drink bought for me with the days tip money.  A different experience than I was accustomed to on my homewater or in the local bar when the guides came off river.  It humbled me, it made me realize that this business was about people, the stories, and the trout met.  It was a brotherhood of river stewards that put their life’s passion into trout and the rivers where they lived; and the people that enjoy them.

I left Colorado with a new sense of what I was becoming a part of.  I never understood why my homewater had so much tension between those that worked the river.  Granted it was quite a bit worse back then, and worse before I even knew what fly fishing was.  The Yakima is a much different river these days.  It has its moments of testosterone driven stupidity but what activity with a bunch of dudes doesn’t.  But I remember a lot of BS thrown around when I started floating the river in my big hog.  Haters gonna hate.  They hate us cause they ain’t us.   

When I traveled to Montana for the first time the trip turned into an epic failure.  Broke my boat trailer, limped out of Rock Creek and back to Missoula on the frontage rd at 8 mph with a busted spindle and a guide trip in three days.  Good times.  But before the shit hit the fan I was cruising around a dirt road on the backside of some field with the Bitteroot in sight.  I wasn’t really chasin’ trout, I was more trying to get lost in Montana.  I ended up in Darby.  One of the quirkiest and coolest little towns in MT for me.  I walked into one of the many fly shops looking for a map and maybe a place to float.  Talked to this older lady tying flies in the back asking about the usual.  She asked where I was from.  We got to talking, and she showed me the flies she was tying up, simple prince nymphs, but elegant and perfect.  Then she showed me the flies that she had tied and that were on sale.  Got some of the best salmon fly dries ever from her.  I remember the creak of the floor under my feet.  The dust on the unpopular flies in the bin.  The old photos, some with a younger version of the fly tier and beautiful trout.  The country music in the background, old school, I remember the end of a Willie song when I came in.  Old clangy bell on the door.  She asked me about my boat, saw my guide permit at the counter and asked me where I guided.  Told her the Yak.  She knew it, knew it wasn’t the kindest river.  I chuckled.  She sold me all the flies for $1 a fly.  I told her the total wasn’t right.  “Nah hun, you’re here to get away from guiding, you go enjoy the river.” I thanked her and left for the Bitteroot.

I visit that shop when I go through Darby every time now.  Just in hopes I might see her again and hear another story and see what she’s tying that day.  There is a genuine and very human connection that can happen with anglers.  Even anglers that don’t know each other or meet in passing.  Its something that I began to crave almost as much as trout.  The people the stories, that shared experience.

When I was in Wyoming I remember talking loudly over a football game at one of the many bars in Jackson Hole.  We met up with a guide after his trip for dinner. We had fished a side channel near Black Tail Ponds that day.  Was one of the best days I have ever had fishing.  Big techy cutthroat slapping big ol late season mayflies.  Grand Tetons in the background.  A grizzly bear was prowling around, my friend hooked a monster brown trout that broke him off, huge fish.  I was relaying the day to the local guide, I remember it being one of those conversations that turned into a back and forth of fishing stories from Canada to Louisiana.  Talking about the things that drive us nuts, when burnout hits, bananas, how we do lunches.  Just guide stuff.  That stuff we all get to talking about if you let us.

I started to realize during that trip that that peculiar group of too involved angers on my homewater…may include me.  It solidified that last day before we made the long melancholy trek back home.  It was cold.  Rock Creek in late September will be like that.  We had just finished our second day on the MO.  It was grueling with 30mph winds, which is nothing for a couple of guides that work the Yakima, but we did a 15 mile float like frattadas.  I rowed most of the day as I had already took the cake in terms of browns the previous day with a DECENT 25 inch male all spawny colored and hangry.  We stripped streamers in that wind and killed it for most of the day.  Then drove all the way to Rock Creek.  We were beat.  I remember curling up in my hammock, smoking a fatty, and falling asleep to the faint sound of the river and the Montana night sky.

The morning was frosty.  Heavy low wet fog was stuck in the pines above my head.  My fishing partner, which for all I knew had died in the night of exhaustion or was hauled off by a bear, was not having any of the morning.  I pulled myself into stiff waders, grabbed my satchel and fly rod and made for the river.  I was first on it that morning.  There were small mayflies and sneaky cutthroat.  By 9 am I was joined by a fellow angler.  He waved and walked by while I was tying up another fly.  Of course he asked how it was.  I told him they were sipping small para adams in the seams but were light lipping the fly.  We got to talking.  His camp was just next to ours.  He mentioned the swanky boat we were using.  Not mine, a flashy adipose, not my style.  Asked where we were from and why we got in so late.  Told him about the MO and where I guided and lived.  He was from Pennsylvania, loved Rock Creek, grew up fishing it with his Dad.  Was camping with his family and trying to get a few casts in before his kids got up.  He hadn’t even cast yet and it was 10 am when we finally parted ways with a handshake and a few stories exchanged. 

Tricking trout as the sun rose, waking with rivers, not the guy sleeping off a hangover, being exhausted after fishing for 6 days straight, driving over 1200 miles, listening and talking with a complete stranger and sharing that common fly fishing passion…that connection.  I knew it…  I was finishing up a week long fishing trip, fished 8 different rivers, caught fish everyday, did the whole trip on a budget of less than $500 bucks, tied all the flies except those sex dungeons on the MO, almost died in a class 4 rapid, guide trip the next day after I get home.  Trout Bum…yep.

On my homewater.  I find myself in these situations that remind me constantly that what I do, how I live my life, the stories and moments I share with others…they make up as much of this life as the trout and the wild places they live do.  Fly fishing facilitates that connection to nature and other humans that we seem to be lacking these days.  In a world filled with FB posts and picture filled feeds of fish conquered and products to sell; the essence of what makes fly fishing such a uniquely rich, natural, and human experience is hard to pick out of the scrolling.  I live a rich and happy life because of fly fishing.  I am a steward for the trout and their home.  It’s my home.  I learned early on that money really doesn’t make you happy.  Because if it did I should be miserable all the time.  Money is not necessary to live a rich and happy life.  The stories and people I meet, even if its only for a few minutes of riverside conversation, are worth more than any amount of money.  I found my passion, put myself into it fully, my family has followed me around that bend, and we live and breath rivers and trout.  As the offseason comes to a close I am anxious.  I love my work, cannot wait to share that passion with others.

I also cannot wait to dive back into that world fully.  Not for profit, not for clients, not for anything or anyone other than myself.  To be out on the river, listening to it, hearing its stories.  Meeting trout.  Meeting people.  Those early spring anglers…the ones who sleep in their waders, who are at the coffee shop before it opens, gear already strung up, boats with ice in the cup holders, each breath a visible puff.  The anglers that all know each other because they all share the same level of insanity in some form.  The ones not on a guide trip in February.  That need, the tug, that handshake, the release, that entrance into the world of trout that we all chase.  It changes some.  To their core.  To the point that it is part of their everyday lives.  Those trout bums, feather chuckers, full time river rats, they’re out there, and if you find yourself in the company of them more often than not…you probably are one.

 

Tamarack

 

Fly fishing.  Some learn it from their fathers or grandfathers.  Others learn it from their mums.  A few are just innately good at it.  Others chase it and spend years learning it…not for profit, not to be the best, but just to learn, and have something that fulfills the self.  That accomplishment of figuring something out, the satisfaction of learning and be able to apply a skill and it be successful.  Some people spend their entire lives looking for something that brings their life joy and gratification.

I consider myself very fortunate.  Despite the hardship my family and I have overcome since my lady.  Got started at 18 right out of school.  Became adults together.  People still think we are young and my lady and I laugh.  Just starting out our 30’s with 3 kids under out belt, college degrees, debt, bills, the crap that builds up with life, my lady and I have a few things figured out and some experience with life compared to others our age.  We’ve been homeless, poor, living out a car, hotel rooms, bumming up with parents, if my 20’s taught me anything it was how to survive.  A few years back, my lady and I made a plan.  A very adult plan.  We cut the fat, got serious, and stopped fucking around so to speak.  We set a course, checked our barrings, and struck out on a new adventure…our adventure.

Fly Fishing, it seems, found me right when I needed it.  Fly fishing was and has been one of the only constant things in my adult life.  I stumbled upon it, and a long relationship began.  I sought it out, chased it down, I needed to know everything I could about it, to understand it, to find out all its secrets.  Not to be the best, not to eventually guide and make money, I did it because I was drawn into it. It called to me.  It pulled me in, like a big ‘ol 2’fer trout on the end of your line that won’t give up.  Every time I thought I was ahead of the game, it threw me a curve ball, typically right when life would throw me one as well.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  I always wanted one last cast, one more bend, one more run.  No matter what obstacles were there I kept working my way up river.  Life was no different.

Now I’m not gonna get into all the negative and bad shit that befell my family.  It doesn’t really matter anymore.  But it should be pointed out that I would not be the man I am today with the reservations, resolve, and perspective I have without those years of hardship and in a sense I am grateful for them.  Because, what is life without hardship?  What is fly fishing if the trout does not need to be tricked?  The most memorable fish, have come from some of the hardest to reach spots, the longest and toughest days, and when you least expect it after hours, days, months, hell years, of hard days…then…it happens….and every bad day is worth it.  The journey to that day becomes the story, it becomes the focal point of conversation.  The trout that came of it is secondary, what came before, the lead in, that is what becomes memorable.  Life is no different.  At least not for this trout bum.

The skills required to pursue such places and such memorable stories and trout waiting to be made and tricked, they do not just appear.  Unless you are like my son and are just somehow a tuning fork for trout.  But I was not so inclined.  Fishing was very hard for me.  I was very bad at it for a very long time.  I didn’t catch my first trout for almost 4 months after I started.  But as many know, when you get that first trout, one of two things happen.  You either get over it, or you become addicted.  I was of course the latter.  And I hit it hard.

But I was horrible at it people.  Missed everything.  Just didn’t get it.  Didn’t understand what I was doing.  But that pull, that feeling that something was lurking under that root wad that was life changing, something no other person had ever caught or seen.  I had the bug, I was drawn into fly fishing like nothing I had ever experienced in my young life.   At 30 that hasn’t changed, maybe more controlled, but that need, that pull to the river and what lies beneath has not lost any of its lust since that cold February day over 10 years ago now.  When I think back to how I was during those first few years and what I’ve seen and done, some of it such a blur, that I can’t do anything but smile.  No matter what life threw at me, the years have been filled with some absolutely amazing fishing.

I was able to experience things that anglers twice my age with way more skill still strive for.  With no money mind you.  I learned early on that you don’t need money to enjoy all that fly fishing has to offer.  Expensive gear and fancy accommodations are not a necessity for fly fishing, in fact, in my opinion they are a distraction.  Sleeping under that stars, the river rambling in the background, the birds in the morning, the crackle of the fire, and the sounds of the night, those things are not present in a hotel room or a resort and fly fishing is best experienced as a whole package.  I was able to visit places and fish them, way before YouTube and FB, and digital cameras, on a shit budget, with cheap gear, and hand tied flies, sleeping in the back of my truck or on the ground along the river.  Gone for days at a time, being completely irresponsible as an adult and skipping work and class to do so.  The PNW was my playground and I played hard.  My lady always vigilant and supportive of my trout bum behavior.  When kids got thrown in the mix…we adapted our lives to accommodate both my insatiable appetite for chasin’ trout and having a family.

It’s not like I didn’t put effort into school or my family, but like many from my generation we got dealt a shit hand and had to make due.  We were in college thinking it was a necessity for a good life.  That’s bullshit by the way.  We grew up thinking that was the path we needed to take.  Looking back on it…a lot of wasted time and money.  So when it all went to hell in ’08 and the aftermath of trying to become a regular adult with a standard 9-5 career went down the toilet, after literally 100’s of job interviews, passed up left and right for more experienced  and seasoned individuals I developed a distaste for that lifestyle and the reasons for needing one.  As we grew closer to our 30’s my lady and I made another big change.  This also was when I had a resurgence of fly fishing in my life.  I was fishing more than I had ever before at this time.  I began delving farther and farther into the world of trout and insects, the connection between mountain, river, fish, land, human, all that…stuff!  I couldn’t stop.  With everything that I was told life was supposed to be, then real life giving me one hell of a dick punch, I decided…fuck it…I’m going fishing.  It wasn’t until recently that I thought of putting the skills I had been learning and the trout I had been chasing to work for monetary gain.

With life kicking me when I was down and a push from the best woman in the world; I took the plunge and went full into the business of guiding.  Struck out on my own, that college business stuff giving me the confidence and skills to do it, so there is that from the college debacle.  Being an adult is seeing positive out of shit situations.  Or maybe that’s just the trout bum in me, hell at this point they are interchangeable I guess.  I knew right off the bat, that the time and patience I had put into learning the ins and outs of fly fishing and the years of fishing a ridiculous amount had prepared me on a skill and technique level.  The life that lead me to that point prepped me for the rest.

I learned to teach, I learned to run a business and how not to run one.  I learned who to trust and who to cut out of your life.  I learned from many different people, but developed a strong intuition and technique of my own in the process.  I learned to never stop learning.  That the skills necessary for being a fly fishing guide must be exercised like any other muscle.  This includes the mind as well as the body.  I learned in my first year that this is a people business, not a fishing business.  My time as a musician and entertainer prepared me for that.  My guide trips are gigs, and I play them to the best of my abilities every time I sit at the oars.  I took all that hardship and turned it into a tool set.  Cut out what was unnecessary and focused on what made me happy and have confidence in myself that the money would figure itself out over time.

Business takes time, and must be built, one client and one trip at a time.  Just like catching the most persnickety and wildest of trouts takes time, patience, and a strong skill set with an aptitude for thinking like a trout.  Everything that led me to today was prep…the preseason.  People ask me how I keep my energy level up the way I do.  They ask if its just a show…its not, when trout season starts I start, when it ends I take a breather.  Its my life, and if you can’t get excited about life then what the hell are you doing.  I get to live, I’m not chasin’ bills, and I don’t have a lot of stress in my life other than the little things.

The off season is for rest, reflections, preparation, and to focus on the other things life gives you, like kids and shit.  The off season is long though.  But I’m young still and about half way through the off season…I get anxious…I feel that call, the pull, the river enticing and inviting.  The trout…oh the trout…intoxicating just to watch, habit forming and very addictive to trick and become involved in their world.  The satisfaction I feel knowing what it took to be able to enjoy fly fishing as life.  It’s not just a business for me, but my business is hand built, like my flies making it mean something more to me than just financial stability.  It’s mine, I’m building it, I’m putting in the work and time, that little slice of American Dream for myself I guess.

It’s funny, I talk about business, but in reality I’m thinking about how I can skate through the early season by only taking as many trips as necessary so I can fish myself.  When you work in your passion you don’t get to enjoy it as much.  Like the artist constantly working on commissions instead of their own artistic pieces.  Like having to play cover tunes at a gig when you have a library of originals.  Luckily I love my job as much as I love fishing.  But I do get burnt out.  On a people level and a skill level.  When I burn out on people I fish with friends or solo, or go see a movie.  When I burn out on clients missed fish…I go fish.

I bare witness to many a missed fish by clients.  It breaks my heart, but its also part of the fun.  I do have days where I know that skills I have honed over the years are what are needed for a particular fish or situation.  Some people just aren’t on the level yet.  I do my best to get clients close, and many times it works out…well….a lot of the time actually now that I think on it.  Ha…sweet.  Anyway, when I start to feel like snatching the rod out of a persons hand and doing it myself.  I take a break and fish myself.  If you tried to book a trip with me the last week of October, I was taking one of those breaks.  I fished everyday for a week straight.  Slayed trout too.  There are times that those skills need to be practiced, to be tested, tuned up, and enjoyed.  I didn’t learn all this stuff to not go fishing.  I add and test skills and techniques as well.  Constantly learning and retooling and tuning.  As I’ve gotten older and life has simplified, I find myself wanting to fish even more.  I know that I cannot be an effective guide if I myself am not an effective angler.  Those who teach should also do.  If this is life…I wanna do it right.

Fly fishing is so much more than business or hobby to me and my family.  It is our lives.  From the food we eat, to the cloths we wear, to the conversations at the dinner table, and the adventures we have as a family, its what we do.  My lady and I are already planning shuttle stuff, prepping the kids and house for trout season, the days are getting longer, the river starts is quiet call.  Our whole lives revolve around the river here.  It’s a good place to be.  The journey here wasn’t easy…but nothing worth a damn is easy.  2’fer trout don’t just trick and catch themselves they require patience, skill, time, a developed angler, and a few big fuckers missed that haunt you.  Prep work.  Life.  Fly Fishing.  Boom.

 

Tamarack