Sometimes while guiding, things will happen that make it seem like you know every stone in the river. On the same token, sometimes if you try to ham it up too much, it can backfire on you badly. There are times when speaking out and calling a shot like "Ok, get a good drift here and you will get one" can make you look like a clown. On the other side of it, there are times when you are trying to develop momentum or inspire confidence in your sports during a dry spell where talking like this can make you look like a hero.

I am careful about being too specific when approaching a hotspot as it can often lead to the guest feeling pressured or rushed to hit the spot, hit the cast, or hit a seam just right. I am sure guests can sense a change in my tone or the amount of detail in my descriptions when you are in the sweet spot without me having to tell them that it is one.

A good story spanning six years comes to mind when I think about this topic. Circa 2012 I was guiding a good friend Sweet Tony. Tony caught a beast of a brown near the tailout of the little nook at the bottom of the water ski park. (apologies to those who don't know this place but many of my readers do) An arduous battle ensued, and we landed the fish a few hundred yards downstream. It was one of the better brown trout of the season and a fine specimen of 25.5 inches with a big gnarly beak.

Fast forward to 2018, and I was guiding a good friend and his wife. It was my first time meeting his wife and had always heard stories of her out fishing him and of her angling prowess. True to the stories she was having a great day. As we approached the little nook, and I was telling the story of Sweet Tony and his big brown from this upcoming spot. I described where the spot was and had her run her foam stonefly with a light leech trailing below it, through the bucket. I was surprised but not surprised when she came tight on a beast. Another inspiring scrap found us a few hundred yards downstream. Throughout this, I tried to refrain from patting ourselves on the back as I wanted the fish in the bag first. We quickly photo documented what turned out to be the biggest brown of my 2018 season and returned it to the mighty Bow River. In the afterglow of this special moment, I realized that we were within 10-15 yards of where we landed Tony's nasty boy brown over half a decade earlier. Such a special moment with great people surrounding the whole thing.

A story of Two Brown trout