My name is Pat. I am a fishing guide.
I help people with fishing problems. Guiding has always been a competitive sport, where death threats are the sincerest form of flattery. Disputes settled with gaff hooks at ten paces. Where people hate you for being happy. Happiness you see is a lot like fishing. There is only so much on earth.
Nice day on the Hoh River, Olympic Peninsula
I became a guide to help people find happiness. That, with the money, power and revenge I call, “sharing my love of nature.”
City folks laugh and say being a fishing guide ain’t work because you’re just fishing and that’s what you like to do anyway but fishing and guiding are two different things. When most people go fishing, they usually don’t expect to catch anything. People who travel to the Olympic Peninsula from all over the world to go on guided fishing trips, do expect to catch something.
These people all have one thing in common. They all want no need to have a good day’s fishing.
There’s just something about watching a three foot long chrome-plated trout peel out a hundred yards of line and jump into the sunrise that allows you to forget your dead-end career, abusive relationship and nagging health problems long enough to enjoy life. These sordid details of a doomed existence are somehow pushed to the back burner when you hear the words,
“Fish on!” The experience has been known to release endorphins into the blood stream that can adjust serotonin levels in the brain, in a manner consistent with other forms of addictive behavior. The symptoms of a fish induced psychosis can take many forms. The angler may wear rubber boots when it’s not raining. They obsess on the weather report. They may smell like fish. They develop physical maladies like minor burns on their thumbs caused by hot fish peeling line off the reel. Or they may suffer from tennis elbow without ever having played the game. They got it from setting the hook on one too many fish. They may develop problems at work that is, if they still have a job.
Typically, the beginning angler starts out happy to catch one steelhead a day. They think that is good fishing. As the season progresses however, they are driven to catch another and another fish to get the same buzz they used to get catching just one. They may go on fishing binges that can last for days. The only purpose of which is to catch larger and brighter fish. The mystical connection between man and fish is reduced to a delusional statistic of numbers caught on the days spent fishing.
At that point there is nothing you can do but wait until the angler hits bottom. The day will come when they couldn’t catch a fish if it was flopping on the beach. This will often cause the poor angler to pause and reflect on the pointless nature of their existence. They find themselves wishing they could just catch one fish. That would be a good day’s fishing.
Got a fishing problem? Call me.