Fly fishing guiding is a serious occupation. Our top priority is keeping our guests safe on the water. If you want to stay booked, you better put fish in the net! Some fishing guides take themselves too seriously and forget that people want to have fun. Guide burnout unfortunately exists.
I had been guiding guests in western Montana for about 15 years and I noticed that I was turning into a grumpy ass! Maybe I was always a grumpy ass but it took 15 years for me to admit it, whatever! I needed to change my attitude a bit. So I invented Fly Fishing Friendly Farrah, my alter ego. A cute doll that openly and honestly speaks her mind, while critiquing my attitude and personality a bit.
Your alter ego is normally something that stays hidden in some dark part of your mind and can’t come out, especially in the service industry. An example of your alter ego would be : you are an employee at McDonalds and an obese person orders 3 big macs, two super size fries, and a small diet coke! Your alter ego would say to the patron “Good thing you ordered the diet coke because that’s gonna save you from heart disease, high cholesterol, and diabetes.” The employee can’t say what he’s thinking unless he wants to get fired, but his alter ego wants to vent none the less.
Constantly on the water your alter ego is screaming inside your head, “quit false casting for F#*K’s sake”. Three hours after you have been explaining to your fishing client why not to false cast so much. Your dude has plenty of line out but he likes to, in the words of Devo, ‘Whip it good’. In this case part of my alter ego leaks out and I’ll say “You know Robert (my client) we don’t have flying fish in Montana, and if you leave your fly on the water for a short period of time, your odds of catching a trout drastically improve!”
I have a million examples of my alter ego repression but I will only bore you with a few, probably in a later blog.
I overheard a grouchy guide on the Missouri berating his guest saying “My client yesterday caught 40 fish because he would set the hook, if you want to catch trout, set the God dammed thing!” The guide was correct although he needs to change his teaching method. He obviously won’t stay booked very long being an asshat, unless he only guides sadomasochists!
In conclusion of this blog you might be seeing Fly Fishing Friendly Farrah from time to time for three reasons:
- I’ve never really considered my self perfectly sane (not too many would argue that point).
- I’ve all ways tried to be polite, patient, and PC but Fly Fishing Friendly Farrah might not!
- I am going to try to take myself less seriously.