Well, I guided hunting/fishing full time for 14 years. I loved the work, but it paid squat. Longest/hardest days I ever put in.....having said that, if I was younger, I'd gladly do it again.
Fishin'
There was a time long ago--before I became
"civilized"--when I made my living guiding bass fishermen and
duck hunters in Florida.
The work days started about 3am to get the boat
ready, find bait-usualiy wild shiners about 10" long-- mend
tackle and attend to the seemingly endless tasks necessary to
make the day go well for my clients.
They paid for and got a full day--daylight till dark-- on the water.
By the time the fish were cleaned and all the good-
by's said, it was around 10pm and time to hit the sack.
That was the hardest work I've ever done and some of
the most rewarding, if you don't care about money.
Something always needed fixing or was worn out and
it took most of what I made to keep the boat and tackle In good
shape.
But the good part was I got to watch the sun rise and
set EVERY day, and learned to recognize the lake's changing
moods by little things like a slight shift in the wind or the flight
pattern of the gulls. That lake and I became friends over time
and she confided in me.
What's it worth to watch an Osprey dive from 60 feet
and come off the water with a half-pound shad in it's claws,
turn it head forward as easily as you could while shaking the
excess water off itself, only to have it taken away in mid-air by
the sheer power of a bald Eagle?
Apple snails as big as golf balls laying their lavender colored eggs on
the marsh grass and being picked off by the Everglades Kites
flying as silently as owls, or Purple Gallinules out for a walk on
the carpet of weeds a mile from shore, the grunt of pig-frogs
and 'gators, the sweet piping sound of a flock of shorebirds as
they all turn on a dime or the rowdy, incessant calls of giant
Sandhill cranes.
The marsh itself, living and ancient, with a complex
and self-sustaining matrix of plants and animals formed over
centuries.
I dislike the word "ecosystem".
It sounds too scientific and catagorical.
A marsh is a place of the senses! There are sights and
sounds and smells found nowhere else on the planet, and it
has the feel of the original cauldron we were mixed in.
It is an antidote for the blahs of modern, air conditioned living.
Guiding was a fine and honest way to make a living,
but it changed. The sportsmen and women went out less and
less for a natural experience and more and more to just catch
fish.
I saw the developement of the "Tournament
mentality" which dictates that to have been fishing, you must
have caught a limit of fish.
Later, this was amended to mean
that if you hadn't caught a BIG fish, you'd wasted your time.
There is a genetic flaw in mankind that causes our
competitive nature to reduce a wonderiull sport like fishing to
a game of pounds and ounces where the winner can brag
about making a thousand casts in a day.
Guiding stopped being a lifestyle and became work.
Fishing shouid be about kids and home-made tackle
tied to a willow pole.
It should be done with bait you caught
yourself and put in the old Prince Albert can you kept for just
that purpose.
Or about the sweet meat of bullheads and the
one that got away, leaky old green wooden boats with
groaning oar-locks and home-made anchors made from old
paint buckets filled with cement.
Or farm ponds in the evening
with casting gear and a Jitterbug tuned just right to make the
"plop plop" sound when slowiy reeled or about a bluegill bed
and a fly-rod with a tiny popper--and it should be respected.
I still miss the Marsh and get out on one as often as
time and circumstance will allow.
I always take a rod or gun,but as often as not it isn't baited or loaded.
I like to talk to the ducks on the old reed call and pretend they understand.
I tell them how much I miss them and express my envy of their
beauty and how I wish I could fly wild too,
and they fly by for a look at what's making all the noise.
I never forgot those first lessons the Lake taught me:
If you try hard enough NOT to fish, you'll always catch
something worth remembering.
Topic: The Perfect job!!!! (Read 657 times)
