As a fishing and hunting guide in my 23rd season I’ve spent much time outside navigating natural environments. In any trade there is an evolution. Gaining experience sharpens skills. The more trips the more success. Learning something new every time out is important.

Floundering a bit is a default strategy of mine. The hard way is not the easiest but sometimes the quickest route. In the niche world of guiding — in any world of anything — good judgement is attained through experience. With more experience comes sharper decisions.  A simple equation that results in success. The scrapes and dents along the way remembered and reflected upon.

The punching of a clock and my entire departure from “The Real World”…On that I never looked back. Loss of a constant salary required serious hustle. It was a stretch before the guide service began to pay and the fishing and hunting programs thrived.

For the first decade I existed as a fly fishing guide.  Stillwater, tailwater and small stream fly fishing made the program. Full-time guiding, paying bills with hunting and fishing, required ten years of hard work and money, and an expansion of venues.

Then came Covid.

The virus sent throngs of humans into the outdoors. People who inhabited inside spaces invaded outside spaces. Like flocks of ducks migrating from the Canadian prairies to the Mississippi Delta —  humans fled from the Burbs and the City’s to local lakes and rivers.

The game changed. Places counted upon to cough up nice fish on a rainy Tueday morning in May were found occupied by BayRunners and Jet Ski’s, pontoons, and fishing boats of all sizes. Launches were crowded and full of bullshit. By the Spring of 2022 I had become despondent.

The invasion of recreational boaters and anglers grew exponential and the fishing pressure was intense everywhere even in the backcountry of the Adirondacks.  Trailheads, campgrounds and marinas were overwhelmed.

In the decade or so that I was employed as a tree cutter for the USDA I abandoned all savy I ever had — or could of had — with the fast growing technology of computers and smart phones. The extent of my computer skills, as a government tree cutter, was completing a bi-weekly time sheet by pecking numbers on a desktop computer into a personnel spreadsheet. Then press the return key and hope to get paid.

When guiding became my trade, my full-time existence, I became further detached from tech. This made me less fit for the job market. ‘The only thing living in the wilderness teaches you is how to live in the wilderness” John Geirarch once wrote.

The only thing day after day of guiding prepared me for was more guiding.

So I went to Alaska.