The first mistakes...

My list of dumb moves began, ironically, with my first move in the fly fishing industry.

From my perspective, when I lobbied to change the S Ram to catch & release, it was after years of working for the Forest Service and looking ahead. I knew that the logging company was opening access, so too o&g. Watching catch rates and sizes dwindle while extrapolating to the future, it didn't take a genius to figure out what was to come for the river. To this day, I believe the Ram a special and unique location that is more deserving of a wilderness park with motorized restrictions. Others would see it differently, that's how the world turns. For now, it's c&r.

But a dumb move was being a guide and doing the lobby to get the river c&r. I should have done it before I began guiding. Local perception was rampant that I was doing the lobby solely to get attention to myself, my company, to pump my business. I still laugh at that notion in disbelief. I heard back that I was self serving, etc. To some degree that notion is correct simply due to the law of physics that action gets reaction. But the motivation & purpose has and always will be the river.

Things went downhill the summer after. A project to establish a baseline fishery study on the Ram fell apart due to some politics. A concept came together that the local advocacy group would fund raise, then finance a fly in, one day fly fishing study of the river. Two angler units spread out every few kilometers were to be dropped off by heli in the remote reaches, while other pairings would drive/atv to their reaches to fish. The idea was to have baseline fisheries data taken on the same day, same conditions, etc throughout the drainage, then repeated every few years to monitor the population. Basically, fish your butt off all day and record the result so there were tangible numbers to show trends through time. This was yet prior to the logging roads and oil & gas roads & wells that have since come to the river. It was a wonderful project concept, which would at least show us the pre-industry status of the fishery and subsequent trends. It would also have shown catch rates prior to the wave of attention the river has garnered this past decade. It was something that hadn't been done before in Alberta by a private organization.

And then came the politics.

Who would be the anglers? Not only who are the anglers but who got to choose the anglers? What sections would one person fish... while who got the free heli fishing trip?

People were asked to submit names who they thought should be amongst the anglers. I was 24 at the time and only knew names of people that you read in magazines plus a few others. So, Jim Mclennan, Barry Mitchell, and a few others were on my list. I figured if these guys were the gurus of fly fishing in Alberta, who better to do the fishing to get the data? That's the very moment I began to learn to never under-estimate the ability of others to project their limited viewpoints and paint a very narrow picture of you. As Barry was heading the project through the local advocacy group, in later years he told me how much I pissed people off in that group with my list, that they saw me as having no respect for the group and that I was (again) self serving. Apparently a few stated that I only wanted Jim on the trip so he'd write a feature article about the river and my company. I hadn't thought of that, I simply wanted the river to get the best opportunity to thrive well into the future. Credit to Barry that he's never told me who had said what, and frankly I don't care.  Being good friends, Barry & I have spoken of it a few times through the years now, and every time I come back to my position that I simply wanted the river to be taken care of. However, I do realize the mistakes I made, and hopefully this might help someone else.

I didn't know the people involved. I didn't know the fundraising process. I didn't know how entrenched the people involved had been with the group, nor for how many years, and much less did I recognize the extent of pride people take in their involvement. In a nutshell, I was only focused on what I wanted, saw things from my perspectives and I didn't take the time to look around me to see what was really going on. And tell me that's not typical of a 24 year old.

When dealing with an establishment, it is as much about the people and their/its history and keeping their involvement, energy, momentum and taking the time to recognize it than simply to bang out the project. Without the people involved, nothing gets done. That's what makes clubs/groups so valuable and, when you think about how long and how many projects have been accomplished, so amazing.

When it comes to taking the time to honor those involved, it's important that we do so to the best of our ability and put our own agendas and timing aside for the betterment of the whole.

When it comes time that you have a great idea and want to see it accomplished, taking that extra time to get to know how things have been done before, what the process within the group involved is, and stroking a few egos (in a positive, sincere manner) along the way saves everyone a lot of time, energy, and grief. I'm still hearing about it nearly 15 years later.

Which leads to the biggest lesson of all in the fly fishing industry - people have really long memories. Like it or not, whether they are right or wrong, people remember what they will of you and generally won't let it go, good or not. There's a lot of pride and ego in the Alberta scene to boot, and when you add it up, it's best to heed the lesson - look to the future with every action and interaction as you'll likely interact with the same people 20 years from now that you are today. Try your best to make it the most positive interaction you can.