Thank goodness it’s almost time! May in Alaska is a busy month on just about every level. Snow is melting, water levels are rising, mass animal migrations are taking place every day, ground cover and trees are once again filling out, days are getting longer while nights are disappearing and in similar fashion chores and time to complete them are being added to the list and hopefully getting crossed off. There are so many things we’ve been waiting months and months to do but even for the best of planners and list makers time charges ahead and waits for no man. I’m often guilty of watching it go by on the best of days. In springtime I am like a lizard, I need a certain amount of time sitting motionless on a warm flat rock recharging my long depleted solar batteries, then at all at once I’m off and running. Springtime for a fishing guide and lodge owner in Alaska is without a doubt the most hectic time of year. Those cabin renovations that were put off on account of weather, the vehicle and boat maintenance, the gear revamping, the last minute vacation planners calling at 10 am Eastern time but 6 am Alaska time, and of course the dreaded paperwork of getting licensed and mostly legal. All of it seems to needed to have been done yesterday! Somehow the pieces fall into place one by one. Most fishing guides have been carpenters, so the cabin work is kind of fun. Most fishing guides have beat up vehicles and experienced catastrophic trailer explosions on the way to the ramp so we’re also pretty good mechanics or at least know enough tricks to get things rolling again. The gear inventory is probably one of my favorite preseason rituals. If a guide is a true angler they’ve already got some rods rigged and know who needs a little love to make it one more season and who needs to be retired. Some gear will not make the cut out of respect for duties fulfilled, fear of breaking their trusty partner or like I often say “that one is mine now”, even though they’re all already mine. If you’ve done any guiding or let your kids use your rod, you understand that last part. The phone calls are fine and necessary. I’ve talked for a couple hours many times about some guys trip of a lifetime and never heard back from him. All good, I’m sure in those conversations I’ve gleaned a few tips from their bag of tricks. I mean you never know when I’m going to be in South Carolina need to know how to rig a live sunfish on a 3/0 circle hook. Either way I don’t take most of the people I talk to about fishing on paid fishing trips so the tire kicking calls are part of it. Last but not the least, and its always the last task completed for me, the paperwork. There’s a big reason why Im a fishing guide and not a white collar anything! I’m actually pretty fast at pecking away at this keyboard but i’m only using three fingers and probably sitting in such a posture that would cripple me if I had to do it day in and day out. The forms are redundant, the insurance a scam, the act of converting actual pieces of paper to pdf’s maddening and getting them all sent to the gal the office will get done but let me tell you, that small part of the job is solid chunk of the reason I chose to be a fishing guide. All of these tasks are necessary and chipping away at them and actually getting it done is a small ego boost. Maybe I’m not just a bum sitting in a boat all summer! Whatever it takes to put it all together off the river probably taps into that part of us that can do whatever it takes to get at least one damn fish for this guy so we can go in and put a rough day to rest. Rough days don’t happen very often and thankfully neither does paperwork. In any event the the time has nearly come! The vitamin D boost, the ego boost, the refilling of the freezer. All the best things about Alaska summers are just around the bend. Kind of like that one last spot we better go check out before we go in. I know its gonna be good!
