I’ve been sitting on this blog post for close to a year. I've waited for opportunity to share. Given my recent posts of sharing some tough Fishing with Friends moments and the lessons to be learned from them, I thought it time. Unfortunately, the negative aspect of recent posts have all derived from the same fishing partner. This post continues on what can be learned from another of my interactions with him.
Andrew & I got to listening to her this summer on satellite radio up at Fortress Lake. It hit home just how much I have listened in the past as I knew what her views would be ahead of time, but also was asking the same questions of the callers before she was. So, yes, I think quite the same way, but by no means as absolute as she has to be within the parameters of the time constraints of her radio show persona. If you get that, you get that she isn’t the cold hearted so-and-so some paint her to be. But few look at the bigger picture of what is trying to be accomplished while putting the thumbs to the micro situations.
One of my favourite aspects of the show is you’re calling for her opinion. This lays the foundation that you place some value on her opinion, that there’s merit. I really get a kick out of the fact that the premise of the show is to garner her opinion on a variety of people's life issues, yet some people call to argue their position. “You called me, honey, here’s what I think.” Them’s the rules. It makes no sense to argue at all – she’ll offer her opinion, her viewpoint. Just remember, you called her, and she’s laid the ground rules, so play by them or off you go! If you get that, there can't be much controversy - take it or leave it, apply/use it or not.
So, how does this tie in to fly fishing? On last year's trip to New Zealand, we spent time with friends, spending considerable time trying to find water that they could successfully fish. It wasn’t easy. We fished a few waters together in hopes for a break through for them. Everything Amelia & I did for over 2 or 3 weeks was to try to get them into fish, somehow. That break through didn’t happen. He struggled for days on end and Amelia & I watched his demeanor crumble to the point he was unbearable to be around for everyone. Nothing was going to get him out of his funk but a fish or two - which takes us back to the whole discussion of results based depression. Finally, I'd had enough of his perpetual withdrawing, pouting and utter snippiness perpetuated to his wife and us. I piped up,"I have a few waters I can take you to, but you have to promise not to go back to fish them afterwards, and you can't name them or tell anyone where you were." Being friends, and having given him countless emails and conversations of fly fishing & New Zealand advice previously, I expected that his agreeing to my request would be followed through. We offered them a piece of ourselves on the premise that they tell nobody, did not share, never named where they were. They agreed and away we went. All was good. Finally, a fish was caught, though it remained a struggle for them. AJ & I had to give way for most of the time we were together in order to provide opportunity. Sight fishing isn't for everyone, not everyone is successful at it.
Here’s the Dr Laura tie in. About 2 weeks after we parted ways, I began to get emails from several different people that I did not know, as well as a couple that I do, asking why the people we were fishing with were naming the waters we were fishing in New Zealand. Amelia & I had been very specific in our request, both ourselves and our friend Serge (who had guided our friends) had been very specific about this. It goes against the Kiwi spirit to name waters in conjunction with fishing reports and photos. I replied to the emails questioning us that I had no knowledge of our friends having named names. One fellow told me to do a Google search on a few waters. Sure enough, there was my friend’s blog with several blog posts at the top of the Google search. I then did a Google image search. My friend had named his images and posted them on line using the water’s name as a file name. On one particular river he was the only person on the planet to post a fishing image of this particular river. Imagine being the only person in the world to name a river on Google! That says an awful lot about breaking the Kiwi code. (I’ll explain the Kiwi code in a future post).
But there I was, not only having to get my friend to live up to his word, having to grind him on the obvious, but he had put me in a compromising position publicly and I had to address emails questioning me because of his actions. I set my boundaries on both sides, expecting my friend to live up to his word, and to the incoming emails stating both what my friend agreed to and that I’m not him.
I emailed my friend asking him to remove the images, the reference to where we fished on his blog, any reference to us. Instead of, “Hey, you’re right. We agreed to that before hand. I screwed up. I’ll fix that,” I got an email from him telling me all the information is publicly available in books and on line, that if I had valid concerns to email him and they would decide if my concerns were valid and then, possibly, he would make the change. I had to explain that he was the only person on the planet revealing one river, that he was tying Amelia & I in to his actions, that the information might be available but it was not all available in one location on a silver platter the way he presented it.
What I like about Dr Laura is her cutting to the chase. I was direct as well. I simply reiterated what he’d agreed to. I also shared that more people than he realized read our blog and website, and find our information on line. And, very importantly, while AJ & I respect the Kiwi spirit, we expect those that we fish with do so as well which is why we insisted on no naming of the waters that we took them to in hopes they catch a fish. Their actions were reflecting upon us publicly, even though we made it perfectly clear: if we’re upholding an ethic, you either uphold that as well, or we simply don’t fish together, and certainly don’t discuss fishing together. There was no thanks for having taken them to our more intimate waters, just a brick wall of stubborn refusal on our request. At the end of a few emails back and forth along these lines, I finally, simply said to him, “Look, this is what you agreed to before we even fished together. That should be enough for you to make the changes.” In the end, I had to brow beat him in to changing the file name information and deleting a few images.
My friend didn’t see anything past himself. He didn’t get and didn’t care about the breaking of the Kiwi code. He didn’t care about the compromising position he put me in. He didn’t care I had to reply to emails because of his actions. He didn’t get and didn’t care that I spent 2 ½ weeks of our vacation time, paying good money to be in New Zealand, trying to set him up to fish successfully. None of that mattered. He didn’t want to admit he had made a mistake, much less discuss it, much less rectify it. He saw it his way and certainly became defensive when his error revealed. There was no room for discussion no matter how AJ & I tried. How do you approach that? Gently, but it tells you to keep your cards tighter to our chest in the future.
Our relationship suffered because he did the exact same thing that some callers to the Dr Laura Show do. They miss the point and would rather argue their position and not show vulnerability that they made a mistake, that they didn’t do the right thing, much less take the first step to rectifying it. Another good friend of mine is always baffled by people that would rather argue than admit a mistake. “Davie,” he always says, “my simplest measure of a man is can he say ‘I screwed up. I apologize. Please forgive me. I am going to do everything I can to rectify it. If I can’t, I know this is a strain on our relationship but it is important enough to me to try my best now’.” It’s something I’ve lived by, always trying to look ahead before I take action to ensure I don’t put myself or others in a tough spot. I’m one to explicitly admit my mistakes and apologize with a focus to betterment in the future. The best part of it all is that this all requires good lines of communication, but that’s a future blog post.
If you don't follow through on your word, are you really a friend, or a self absorbed individual simply using someone else’s talents for your own status improvement, to look good, to feel good about yourself? My friend was certainly in that category and needed to have his photo with a big fish for his blog. He needed others back home to see him with at least one big fish. At the end of our time with us, we found a river choked with fish that they could simply nymph the runs and catch fish. Catching is what mattered most to them but it wasn't going to happen sighting and casting. Of course, his persona changed from snippy, shut off, grumpy, disengaged to elated and over the top once he began catching. And of course, they milked the hell out of that river to ensure they got enough fish photos to give the appearance of an amazing trip.
I am simply using a tough situation to encourage folks to honor each other in this matter. It’s really easy to honor each other, as evidenced by the very next person we fished with in New Zealand. He didn’t name any river on his blog or facebook page, wasn’t trying to be a hero to his friends, enjoyed the quiet nature of fly fishing, and loved the style of the fishing. We shared willingly with him. In fact, the less he shared publicly, the more we shared with him. Funny how that works, eh? In the case of the friend who caused the issue, it’s very difficult for a relationship to come back from a breaking of trust like that, especially given what fly fishing is to Amelia & I. But there again, a true friend would have given that some consideration before his own needs to catch & be seen were fulfilled.
Now, I only have one post left in this series of things to learn from this ex-fishing partner. Not so curiously, it's titled, "You have nobody to blame but yourself". And there's certainly another Dr Laura tie in to that one too!
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