Speaking words of Wisdom

A recent trip helped remind me of a valuable lesson I learned very early in my guiding career – Although we all like casting the rod and fishing, as ghillies and guides, the reason we are there in the first place are our clients and too ensure “their personal” enjoyment of their weeks fishing! After all, it is they who pay the cheque!
The enjoyment of salmon fishing can be measured in many ways, but ultimately, the first objective for most clients or guests is to catch a fish. To this end, it is the job of the host or organiser, to provide their guests with the relevant information about – The water they will be fishing and what they are likely to expect by way of – Size and flow of river, numbers of fish to expect at this specific time of the year, suitability for elderly or young people, how much fishing is expected to be done over one day, what type of lure/lines are most successful at that time, single or double bank, etc, etc. After this is it the job of the ghillie or guide to ensure all of the above is carried out to the best of his or her ability in a physical sense.
I was fortunate to have been trained by the best in the business. In the late Sir David Wills, I saw the perfect host, a man of vast fly-fishing experience, who’s goal when hosting a fishing party was, not to prove how good a fisher he personally was, but to ensure, fish or not, all his friends had a really good time, leaving the river at the end of the week, with something more, be it fish, knowledge, deeper friendships or, as was the case most of the time in his company, a mix of all of those! His head ghillie/guide, at that time, had more than 40 years working for both him and the previous owner, and, like many such people, had a wealth of experience, not only in Salmon and how to catch them, but much more importantly, to provide guests with information, encouragement as well as physical assistance in their realising their goal. A combination of the experience of those wise people helped shape my approach to entertaining and guiding clients, and provides the backbone of historic salmon fishing culture in Scotland.
As a young ghillie I looked forward immensely to Saturday evening, when, after the departure of Sir David’s friends, he would invite his ghillies to have a cast with him. How fortunate I was to be fishing some of the finest waters, at the best time, and in the company of a man with such wisdom. All I could do was learn, and not only about fishing, but importantly with regard to guiding, about people! It took me some time to realise why, even if his fishing guests were thin on the ground, Sir David would very seldom have Ghillies or guides fish whilst they were there. Only as my understanding of the profession developed did the penny drop, and I finally realised, in this setting, it was so important for those clients with less casting/fishing ability not to be out shone by the ghillie or guide. Although as a young man, I could not quite grasp this, over time, it became apparent to me that, in fact, superior knowledge/ability, if used in the wrong way, leads only to others feeling inadequate and is the tact of guides, not with a poor experience of fishing, but of people! The realisation of this so early in my guiding career led me to take a different course, one not of keeping my knowledge and from time to time, showing how clever I can be, but at every opportunity, of passing this knowledge on to my clients, friends and acquaintances, and also, other guides; thus ensuring their long term development in the sport of salmon fishing and guiding and keeping strong our long history and culture in sport fishing. Hopefully it will continue in this way!?