Diversify

Yesterday was the maiden voyage for my "new-to-me" raft. We took it out on the Upper-Madison knowing the fishing might be a bit tough but mainly to put it on the water and see how it handled. I'm waiting for my new oars to come and since I sold the oars that came with the raft, I had to use my 9 footers. I was told that for the width of the oar-locks on my raft, that the length of oars should be between 8'6" and 9' by Sawyer...let me just confirm for the record that 9's are WAY too long for my raft. I'm glad I ordered the 8'6's. (Six inches can make a huge difference...just sayin.)

So we put in at Varney Bridge and took out at Burnt Tree Hole. We didn't really expect too many people to be on the river but there were actually three boats putting in right in front of us. Obviously someone was doing something up there so we there was a little bit of optimism building.

I've never floated the Madison so I left the navigation to the "secret guide spots," up to Nathaniel and Torrey. Torrey likes to figure out things on his own so he rigged up his rod with a couple nymphs and I rigged Nathaniel's just to do some of my own figuring out. We use a lot of fire-beads and midges on the Mo this time of year and since fish have been spawning and there are midges on the Madison, I didn't see why they wouldn't eat the same things. About 200 yards down-stream Nathaniel told me to pull over at his first secret spot...he caught this 19 inch brown on the fire-bead and red midge rig. Another quarter-mile or so we hit another nice little run and I caught a rainbow almost the same size on the midge.

We switched up a few things throughout the day and although we had some great success early, the fishing definitely slowed down but we had fun. Towards the end of the day, Torrey started getting some good chases on streamers so I followed suit and managed to land a couple little guys. We had a blast regardless of how many fish we caught and I really enjoyed that stretch of water. I'm sure I'll be seeing it again. It's no secret that I bought the raft with the intent of diversifying.

With all that's going on up on the Mo; more and more guides are showing up from all over the country making deals with outfitters so many of us who have established ourselves as local guides for years now are getting phased out. Now there's legislation being proposed and supported by some shops to allow for "outfitter's assistants" to be able to guide when the outfitter gets in a pinch. This would allow for shops to employ a number of these so-called assistants that could do up to 15 days a year each, at a rate that would out-compete the guides.

I keep going back to something Mark Raisler told me five years ago. He said, "Russ, you have no friends here. Just remember that. Nobody is going to look out for you so you have to look out for yourself."

If there's one thing I've learned by spending the last 6 seasons guiding on the Mo is that there is no such thing as loyalty. Tourism and the guiding industry specifically is a huge money maker for a lot of people, which inherently gets in the way of, or compromises values and principles. I've heard it from a number of guides I've developed friendships with that have been around for decades who have felt the wrath of making the mistake of thinking they were in a good situation with an outfitter and then having the floor ripped out from underneath them. I've also seen the ethics on the Mo deteriorate significantly in the past few years. As a guide, your only security lies within learning as many stretches of river as possible, developing as many relationships as you can, not getting caught up in the politics, treat people as you would want to be treated and take what you get...hence the raft and the recent recon missions. The cool thing is I get to check out some new water and and leave the Dam to Wolf Creek guys to do their thing.

Keep 'em where they live...