Vindication

Check out Jenni with a great Missouri River Bow. Nice work!

I've been staying down low to get away from the crowds and we are doing quite well on nymphs and getting some quality fish on hoppers. With multiple boat trips though, it's tough to get some guys to get away from the dam so when I showed up yesterday and my partner in crime wanted to take our guys as far away from the dam as we could I thought, "Sweet!" Here's the deal though; this guy totally screwed me last year with a couple clients and as much as our philisophies of getting away from the crowds is similar, our methods and ideals on guiding are very different.

Last year I had a couple who had fished before but they weren't great so I had them nymphing up some fish in the morning and then chucking hoppers in the afternoon. They fished for 4 days but I was already booked on day two so this guide, (we'll call him MGD,) took them. Apparently, MGD doesn't believe in nymphing so he had them throwing dries all day regardless of whether there were bugs or not or whether they had the skills to throw dries. He also told them that nymph fishing wasn't really fly fishing and it was just a cop-out for people that can't get it done. So on day three and four, all I heard about was how MGD said this or, MGD says that. We threw dries all those next two days and only caught a handful of fish because their expectations were shaped by this particular guide.

Don't get me wrong; I'll do whatever you want and if you're ok with only getting a few but catching them on dries, I'm totally cool with that and I love teaching new skills. But for beginners who lack the skills to really get it done on a river like the Missouri, don't limit your options man.

So MGD and I took these guys out yesterday on the same stretch of water with about the same level of anglers. My guys nymphed up a buch of fish in the morning and then we started throwing hoppers around 10 o'clock or so. We did ok with the hoppers; catching a few and losing a few more but we were having a blast.

We caught up with MGD at around noon while they stopped for lunch. As we were pulling in, a huge brown crushed one of our hoppers. We dropped anchor next to them and my guys asked them how they were doing and the response was, "Pretty tough...haven't actually put a fish in the boat." My guys didn't say a word and I threw out the fact that we were getting some on the ant and even told MGD the ant we were getting them on.

"I've got ants," he responded.

"Ok, well...we're going to head down and keep fishing while it's good." So I pulled away.

"Do you think they really haven't caught anything?" One of my guys asked.

The other guy said, "No way. They have to be full of shit." I didn't respond.

We got to the take-out and saw MGD posted up on a pod right above the ramp. When they got out, the were talking about the few fish they caught out of that pod and a couple were really good ones. They said it definitely saved the day and honestly, I'm happy for them.

The problem is that there's definitley a balance between doing what you want to do and doing what your client wants. Some people have the luxury of being booked by certain clients year after year and they kind of develop a style that everyone is aligned with. But for a first-time trip with a client, I think you got to figure out what they want from the day and do your best to deliver without limiting yourself to what your ideals are. None of us guides would spend an entire day on the river nymphing on our days off regardless of how tough the streamer or dry fly fishing is but when you have clients, it's different.

I think everyone now pretty much knows how much I hate going to the dam or fishing with hundreds of other boats for fish that have been absolutely pounded for the past couple months between the bridges. But the other day a couple guys thought they would have a better chance by going up to the dam so we did. It wasn't horrible and it wasn't great either but they got to do what they wanted and at the end of the day, it was their trip. That day was more like work to me but you got to do what you got to do. The last couple days were more like fun and that's just the way it is.

Keep 'em where they live...