In the late Autumn of 2019, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I received a phone call from a gentleman named John from Washington, DC. We had a long conversation that included many topics. Most important to John was my ability to explain why he should hire me as his guide for an extensive week-long trout fishing trip into the Adirondack backcountry.

I provided the in-depth information pertinent to my experience and listened as he explained what were his goals for this trip. Over the winter phone conversations between John and I continued. More questions and more answers. Then John agreed, in early March of 2020 that I was the guide to plan, outfit, and lead his lifelong dream trip into the Adirondack backcountry in search of wild brook trout.

John described, in clarity, the experience he wanted. It was one of a true wilderness nature, where difficult backcountry travel through remote country was on the menu. He was on a quest for wild Adirondack brook trout in a wilderness setting. The trout did not have to be big, John added, but they had to be wild and he did not want to see any other people.

 

The challenge of leading an angler in and out of some of the most rugged and remote backcountry in the Adirondack Park was exciting. The words “Trout” and Wilderness” when combined in the same sentence by a guest to describe his expectations of a trip, well, it always make me smile. It is trips like these that require a culmination of skills beyond just catching a fish. In the lost art of Adirondack guiding, it is trips like these, that I live for.