Today will be my last striper fishing trip for this year. It is a perfect fall day with a crystal clear blue sky and around 80% foliage change. The last two mornings have been very cold. In fact yesterday I thought that my clients might freeze. None of us was expecting it to be that cold or to be so slow in warming up. Fishing is slow but there are still fish around and I had a really big striper break my tippet Thursday morning. Here is one of the fish we caught yesterday.
Last week while guiding a striper fishing party I had worked the boat well up onto a mud flat. As I tell many clients I have all kinds of courage when the tide is rising. We were in roughly a foot of water but the fish were there chasing bait to the surface in that shallow water. I heard a kingfisher yell as they do on the late summer and did not really pay any attention. In a moment he was right in front of the boat still nothing that unusual except we were far from shore where they usually hang out.
I recently read an article that talked about the purpose for being in business and it got me to thinking about why I do all of this. There is the fact that I really enjoy what I do. After more than a little thought, remember I am running a wood splitter a part of each day, I have decided that I am a guide because I want my clients to learn something amazing about the environment each time I am with them. I don’t know if I achieve that goal every time but I hear enough stories to make me think that I am at least on the right track.
