OK, I’m just going to come right out and say it: I sucked at guiding. Oh, my clients caught plenty of fish. But if I were a doctor, you might say I had a lousy bedside manner. Or what an old coach of mine often referred to as a “piss-poor attitude.” The fact is, I could never stop thinking about whether or not various clients deserved to catch fish just because they could afford to travel and stay at an expensive lodge. That, and I was frequently impatient. And sarcastic. And irritable. But enough about my good days.

Those of us who relentlessly pursue large trout with a dry fly are hopeless addicts. If we weren't, we'd take up easy chores like curing cancer, ending world poverty, or explaining how long forever is. The essence of our addiction is not complicated—when we see a good trout rising, we don't simply want to catch it. We believe that we have to catch it.