Beyond the Boat: Building a Career From Fly Fishing and Guiding

Part 3 of 3: Becoming a Fly Fishing Guide. Start on a Budget · Your First Seasons · Beyond the Boat

Plenty of guides ask themselves the same question around year five or ten: what comes next? You may love the river and still know you cannot row a boat forever. The trap is the label you give yourself. "I am just a guide" sounds humble, and it quietly closes doors.

The Old Way of Thinking

The old way of thinking says your career is the job title. A guide is a guide, a cop is a cop, and a change means starting over with nothing.

That framing makes people sell themselves short. It hides the skills they have been building for years, and it makes the next step look smaller than it is.

The Mindset Shift

You are not just a guide. You are a person with a bundle of transferable skills, and the next career starts when you take inventory and give yourself credit for them.

How This Plays Out on the Water

Taking inventory

Dan Hoffman grew up fishing in Colorado, moved to Alaska as a boy and guided in Bristol Bay during college. He then spent twenty years at the Fairbanks Police Department, retiring as chief, and moved into industrial risk management and safety before writing a book, An Alaska Flyfisher's Odyssey. His point is that a guide already has a list worth naming: connecting quickly with strangers until they trust you, reading a river you have not seen in months and building a plan on the spot, and handling scheduling, bookings and paperwork as a small business owner. Write that list down before you decide what is next.

Asking the people who already like you

Christian and Dan discussed two practical ways to find your strengths. Read your reviews and look for what clients repeat. Then think back through your clients and who you related to, and call them. Most people love their guide, and being asked for advice is flattering. The fishing community is also unusually willing to help. Dan added that it can help to build a credential or two aimed at the people you want to serve, such as a certificate that opens doors with a particular kind of business.

Picking one platform

Dan was candid that social media is not his natural habitat. Christian suggested choosing a single platform and learning it before adding another, and starting by identifying where your customer actually spends time. For a speaker selling leadership retreats to executives, that points to LinkedIn. For a guide trying to reach families early, a different platform may be the better fit. The principle is to start with the buyer rather than the app.

Common Traps

Author's Story

This conversation is personal for me. Dan and I have both written books about what fly fishing teaches us beyond the water, mine focused on leadership, and we both ended up speaking about it. Dan's approach of working backward from the life he wanted, hosting leadership retreats at remote lodges, and then building the credibility to be invited, struck me as the right way to plan.

It also took me back to my own first trip to Alaska during the COVID years. A friend and I fished the Naknek, and we visited Brooks Falls with only a handful of other people, including the guides and park staff. The platform there usually holds dozens of visitors. Standing in that place, I understood why Dan says to get there while you can.

Pro Tip From Christian

Tight lines, everyone!