AFTER TEN YEARS
Here’s what I love about guiding, as in guiding as a sustainable responsible business
- It is very difficult and at times very complex
- It is tough, very tough – it really is, the toughest thing I’ve ever done
- It very often has very little to do with fishing
- During a guided day a person will, very often, chat about themselves, the time they have, the things they do, their lives and complexities, the people and the things they deal with on a day by day basis
- Very often at the end of a guided day a person will tend to want to deal with some of those things differently
- People in a guiding environment are very interesting
- It very often has everything to do with fishing
After ten years of working as a bass fishing guide blogging and writing about some of those experiences I have developed a desire to move on from the love of trying to perfect the actual guiding process. This has, over the years, become a slight obsession, and after any number of experiences and a number of qualifications, indeed years of hard work, I have it where I want it, just about. I have it distilled!
Because I am ‘over’ trying to determine and dig out and create the best process of doing it and making it happen I surely know it enough now to forget about it, to stop thinking about it and yet still be able adapt and change it as is necessary, seek to reinvent it appropriately to circumstances– I’ve earned that. That is my reward and I am doing that. I am a good bass fishing guide.
I’ve spent enough time on trying to perceive clarity, to understand the meaning of what it is to bass fish in Ireland as a guide and the wider perception and often misconception of what bass guiding is about. This in itself means I no longer seek to try to understand the frequently expressed opinions and ‘definitions’, the ‘functions’ the ‘modern angling requirements’ of the bass angler. I know what these really are, most of them are really simple.
These opinions, wherever they exist, are done too often, done for the sake of supposedly encouraging valuable dialogue, but in reality are likely done for self serving debate and congratulatory ego snacks, even done for plain old look at me and what I can do.