I think I’ve found a new way to make money. It’s a job I’m perfect for, and I’m pretty sure there’s no one out there more qualified than me. I’m going to become the poster-child for how NOT to fly-fish.
It’s a perfectly brilliant plan. I’ll hire Mark Gocke, our Jackson Region Information and Education Specialist, to be my photographer, grab my waders and fly-rod and hit the trail. Mark can snap a few pictures of me while I fumble and bumble about. Then I’ll sell those photos to fly-fishing and outdoor books, magazines and Web sites as examples of what not to do when you’re on the water.
No longer will editors waste precious hours setting up photo shoots or arranging to use amateur models to demonstrate poor casting techniques. I can easily provide such shots for them. Best of all, I don’t even have to act รข€“ I really am supremely awful. Finally I’ve found my God-given talent.
Why in just a few hours of fishing the Jakey’s Fork in June, I could have demonstrated how to lose six flies in under an hour, how to inextricably snag your line with a single false cast and how to unhook a fly from the laces of your wading boots.
Fishing the beaver ponds in Vedawoo, Mark could have even gotten some great video of me lumbering after my water bottle as the creek swept it downstream. He better pack some extra tapes though, because I bet it took me a good fifteen minutes to untangle my line. Maybe viewing the footage will help some physics professor win a Nobel Price for figuring out how its possible to get fifty-nine different knots in twenty-feet of line in under six seconds. Not only am I an aspiring model, I’m also a wonder of science.
Or, some linguist somewhere might be interested in the new swear words I invented when I heard my line snap and realized my last remaining elk-hair caddis, the first fly I’d tied myself, went zipping off to parts unknown. Maybe before the summer is over, there will be a whole new dialect attributed to yours truly. Shimonkaluk…all the cool kids are saying it.
I could branch into product promotion if necessary. During the course of a few hours fishing, I could easily work in placement of products such as Band-Aid or Neosporin. If I'm not pretty enough for ads, I might consider product testing. Did you know a Cabela's Genesis Pro fly rod can be whacked on the ceiling at least seven times without breaking and that elk hide with hair is not a good ingredient for dog food?
And finally, I'd be willing to test some of those super-secret mini-cams to see if we could catch Lance Burton or Chris Angel practicing their magic tricks on me and sell it to the A&E channel. After all, someone must be using slight of hand to plant my cell phone and car keys in my waders. I would have sworn I left both safely in the car trunk, but as I went to release the brook trout I landed, out they popped and plopped into the water. Note to self: Car remotes can get wet and still function. Cell phones, not so much.
I wonder if Mark’s available for antelope hunting season as well?
