Speaker 1: Welcome to on the job. Today, we're talking with Erica Nelson,
Speaker 1: a fly fishing guide in Colorado committed to making the
Speaker 1: fishing community more diverse and more fun workdays for Erica,
Speaker 1: Nelson begins softly.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I just like to just sit at the water,
Speaker 2: especially right when I arrive.
Speaker 3: Sitting there and observing.
Speaker 2: What's going on and then just kind of connecting with
Speaker 2: that place is really important to me. So looking around
Speaker 2: at you know, what birds are around, or what kind
Speaker 2: of bugs or if there's any hatches, and feeling the water. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just connecting with the area in the moment.
Speaker 1: Being a fly fishing guide in Crested Butte, Colorado, Erica
Speaker 1: gets to make a connection with some of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful places in the whole world, especially if you're as
Speaker 1: excited about fishing as she is.
Speaker 2: You know, within ten minutes there's the Slate River in
Speaker 2: the East River, and that's really fun for a bunch
Speaker 2: of little brook trout. And then there's the gunnisin which
Speaker 2: is gold metal water. So as the Taylor River further
Speaker 2: up on the tailor there are like some major mega.
Speaker 3: Trout up there. It's all catching release.
Speaker 2: And then above that there's like some creeks, so it's
Speaker 2: a great place to take people learning how to fly fish.
Speaker 2: There's like open meadows and so it really just depends.
Speaker 1: But you might be surprised to learn that for someone
Speaker 1: whose job has become taking people out on the water.
Speaker 1: Erica didn't always enjoy fishing.
Speaker 2: No. I actually hated it as a kid. My dad
Speaker 2: loved fly fishing, and he tried to take me and
Speaker 2: even spin fishing as a kid, just down a lake,
Speaker 2: and I just remember hating it so much. It was
Speaker 2: like painfully boring, and I would get frustrated and I
Speaker 2: just remember throwing the pole in the water and I'm like,
Speaker 2: f this, like I'm never touching a rot again, Like,
Speaker 2: don't ever me. So my dad and I never talked
Speaker 2: about fishing growing up.
Speaker 1: So it's no wonder that Erica's path to becoming a
Speaker 1: fishing guide had more twists and turns than a meandering river.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of her work life or her occupational headwaters,
Speaker 1: if you will, Erica was working at a boutique hotel
Speaker 1: over in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 2: I really liked the job. It was really pivotal for
Speaker 2: my career and my experience. I started as like a
Speaker 2: housekeeping supervisor and worked my way up into rooms management,
Speaker 2: so I would then manage like housekeeping in front desk folks.
Speaker 1: Among the best parts of that job for Erica were
Speaker 1: her co workers. One even blossomed into a mentor, who
Speaker 1: Erica credits with helping her thrive at work and develop
Speaker 1: as a person.
Speaker 2: And she was amazing because we moved hotels three different times,
Speaker 2: and so it was a really great many years that
Speaker 2: we got to work together, and we were kind of
Speaker 2: this like dynamic duo.
Speaker 1: And these were fancy hotels, the kind of place that
Speaker 1: smells nice and looks cool, but also where the guests
Speaker 1: can be a little needy. So when Erica got a
Speaker 1: few days off, she'd often have a desire to get
Speaker 1: away from all that pomp and hand holding and set
Speaker 1: off into the wild landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 2: It was funny because you know, this was the boutique
Speaker 2: hospitality world. And I would go rock claiming on the weekend,
Speaker 2: or I would go like camping with friends and I
Speaker 2: was like, I just slept on a rock and these
Speaker 2: people are complaining about thread count in the sheets, and
Speaker 2: I think that was a moment of like, wow, I
Speaker 2: really used to like this that I still like hospitality,
Speaker 2: but to a different degree, and it just couldn't really
Speaker 2: empathize as much. And I think that's when I noticed
Speaker 2: I lost this connection.
Speaker 1: Around that same time, there were some staffing changes and
Speaker 1: that mentor that Erica loved working with was replaced by
Speaker 1: someone that she just wasn't really jiving with. So pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: Erica found herself one if maybe there was a new
Speaker 1: step in her life, a new adventure waiting for her.
Speaker 2: And I ended up having this picture of Denali right
Speaker 2: in front of my computer, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, it would be really great to like climber
Speaker 2: ount on someday, and it would be really great to
Speaker 2: be outside right now. So yeah, I think I really
Speaker 2: was fantasizing about being outdoors.
Speaker 1: People will often tell us that when things aren't going
Speaker 1: as we'd like them to, that we should envision what
Speaker 1: our new life might look like. Manifestation as it's called,
Speaker 1: in which we send out our desires into the world
Speaker 1: in the hopes that they come true, But often what
Speaker 1: we get in response isn't exactly what we envisioned. So
Speaker 1: while Erica sat there in her boutique hotel dreaming of
Speaker 1: mountains in Alaska. A friend called her up and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you come down to California and learn how
Speaker 1: to be a whitewater rafting guide.
Speaker 2: I think I said no, And then that afternoon and
Speaker 2: I had a really hard feeting with my boss, and
Speaker 2: then I called her that like evening and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I take it back, I'm coming down.
Speaker 3: So it kind of all happened really quickly.
Speaker 1: So despite having no prior rafting experience and being admittedly
Speaker 1: afraid of water, soon Erica was all about rafting.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I loved it. It was.
Speaker 2: I learned so many different skills, mostly about myself. For
Speaker 2: some reason, I just honed in more like direction, because
Speaker 2: when you're on the water, you need people to do something.
Speaker 2: You need to do it right away or else we're
Speaker 2: gonna flip, right, And I saw this beautiful marriage of
Speaker 2: like the skills that I had in the office and
Speaker 2: then in the outdoors of what I needed people to do,
Speaker 2: and I was like, Wow, there's something to this. I
Speaker 2: ended up getting an undergrad degree an outdoor leadership as
Speaker 2: my minor, and I was.
Speaker 3: Like, that's what it was.
Speaker 2: It was like this connection with people in the outdoors,
Speaker 2: and so that was really cool, and that was kind
Speaker 2: of like the trajectory of wanting to continue guiding, wanting
Speaker 2: people to learn how to guide, wanting to do overnight trips,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, it just kind of stuck with me
Speaker 2: and it's just been such a great skill.
Speaker 1: But Erica isn't one to sit back and get comfy.
Speaker 1: So after doing the whitewater rafting thing for a while,
Speaker 1: she moved up to Wyoming, and while she was there,
Speaker 1: she noticed that a lot of people were fishing, which,
Speaker 1: as we'll recall from her childhood, was totally not her thing.
Speaker 1: But whether it was the staggering beauty of Wyoming's rivers
Speaker 1: or just how into fishing all these Wyoming folks seem
Speaker 1: to be, Erica got intrigued. Then she got a fishing pole.
Speaker 2: And so I was like, you know, I'm just going
Speaker 2: to try this out. So I just went on YouTube
Speaker 2: and tried whipping it around and really wasn't successful in
Speaker 2: the beginning.
Speaker 3: But again, like I've had.
Speaker 2: All these experiences of skiing and you know, rock claimbing
Speaker 2: and backpacking and.
Speaker 3: Was a learning curve.
Speaker 2: But with fly fishing, it was like this thing that
Speaker 2: I wanted to be good at I was like, what
Speaker 2: would it be like if I just caught one fish?
Speaker 2: I just highly com made a goal for myself to
Speaker 2: catch one fish, and then I'm going to move on
Speaker 2: to the next thing.
Speaker 1: When we come back from the break, Erica catches that
Speaker 1: first fish.
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Speaker 1: We're back with Erica Nelson, who, after moving to Wyoming,
Speaker 1: gave herself the very modest goal of catching just one fish.
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to catch that first fish?
Speaker 2: You know, honestly, probably like a year. And it was
Speaker 2: like a year of like catching lots of trees, you know,
Speaker 2: falling in the river, and I would pretend like I
Speaker 2: knew what I was doing when other people would ask
Speaker 2: to come along.
Speaker 1: But despite it taking an entire year for Erica to
Speaker 1: catch her first fish, she started to see how people
Speaker 1: could get so into it. There was something both thrilling
Speaker 1: and almost spiritual about fishing. So she kept at it,
Speaker 1: still slipping on rocks and getting her line wrapped around
Speaker 1: tree branches, but getting ever more into it. And then
Speaker 1: one night she goes to a bar, and being the
Speaker 1: social person that she is, she strikes up a conversation
Speaker 1: with an older gentleman next to her and lo and behold,
Speaker 1: he's a fisherman.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, you can row a boat, you can row,
Speaker 2: I'll teach you how to fly fish.
Speaker 3: And I was like great.
Speaker 2: So it was this really beautiful exchange that we had,
Speaker 2: and he was an elder man, so it was really
Speaker 2: to learn new experiences from him and be able to
Speaker 2: kind of then start my skills and then can build
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 1: So just like that, while talking between SIPs at the bar,
Speaker 1: Erica finds a fishing mentor to show where the ropes,
Speaker 1: a wise old timer who could show her how to
Speaker 1: tie knots and read the water and avoid all those
Speaker 1: pesky tree limbs.
Speaker 2: So yeah, him and I became really great friends for
Speaker 2: the next few years after we met, so he was
Speaker 2: a really He actually took me in my first overnight
Speaker 2: float trip down on the Snake River softwork sneak and
Speaker 2: that was a really cool experience. But to be able
Speaker 2: to have like a solid mentor every weekend, I don't
Speaker 2: think I would be able to have the skills where
Speaker 2: I'm not today.
Speaker 1: In addition to the wisdom of this older mentor, Erica
Speaker 1: also picked up fishing tips from people on social media
Speaker 1: platforms like Instagram and if we're being honest, also, you know,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: Pretty straightforward and honest of like just wiped right because
Speaker 2: you were holding a fish to you my answering a
Speaker 2: few questions like what kind of species is that? Like
Speaker 2: how do I tie this? Now? Like do you have
Speaker 2: any recommendations? And then that's when I actually started to
Speaker 2: build a lot of friendships. So they were like, hey,
Speaker 2: co meet me and finddale, like I'll take you on
Speaker 2: the Green River. And you know, I ended up making
Speaker 2: a lot of great friends and I'm still really good
Speaker 2: friends with today.
Speaker 1: But the more time that Erica spent fishing, the more
Speaker 1: she noticed that the people on the water didn't look
Speaker 1: like her, and sometimes that brought unwanted attention.
Speaker 2: Like I was the only woman at the boat ramp
Speaker 2: and people would just stop and stare, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, this is so it's already like intimidating enough,
Speaker 2: like backing up the trailer let alone, having like a
Speaker 2: full audience staring at everything.
Speaker 1: And the online fishing community wasn't very diverse either.
Speaker 2: I noticed that there wasn't like a lot of women
Speaker 2: of color, especially you know, fishing having indigenous roots.
Speaker 3: And I got a lot of requests from people of.
Speaker 2: Like take me fishing, you know, And I'm like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: like there's this need in this calling that I'm seeing
Speaker 2: in this industry that need more female guides in the industry.
Speaker 2: So when I moved to Colorado, I'm feeling this like
Speaker 2: this tug, this like need, this calling almost to female,
Speaker 2: and so I was like, I'm just going to do
Speaker 2: a season and I ended up having a very busy
Speaker 2: summer of just like people from all over the world,
Speaker 2: really particularly in the US, but coming they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: I heard your guiding, and it ended up like being
Speaker 2: really fun and I was like, wow, this is awesome,
Speaker 2: and I'm seeing an increase and I'm inspiring all these
Speaker 2: like other people that would never normally try fly fishing. Ever,
Speaker 2: and after digging into some research, there was only one
Speaker 2: other indigenous female guide in the entire state of Colorado,
Speaker 2: so that kind of made me like the second and
Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, this is a really interesting like
Speaker 2: demographics and how can I build more people, you know,
Speaker 2: their skill sets and wanting to be into this because
Speaker 2: I've always found fly fishing as a gateway towards conservation.
Speaker 2: The more that you spend time in the outdoors and
Speaker 2: these beautiful areas, the more that you want to protect it.
Speaker 2: And so it's kind of become this like I guess,
Speaker 2: like passion, I guess mission for me, so it's kind
Speaker 2: of how I fell into that.
Speaker 1: Along with becoming only the second indigenous female fly fishing
Speaker 1: guide in Colorado, Erica also worked hard to have an
Speaker 1: impact beyond her region on Instagram and producing a podcast
Speaker 1: she called The Awkward Angler, in which she tackles some
Speaker 1: of the difficult subjects or awkward conversations as she prefers
Speaker 1: to see them that the fishing community needed to have.
Speaker 2: I've heard so many different fishy podcasts, but it's all
Speaker 2: about big fish and destinations and things that I can't afford,
Speaker 2: and it's fine at all, but I've kind of had
Speaker 2: a different perspective when I'm out on the water, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to share that. And also, I fly fish
Speaker 2: with a bunch of folks that are you know, that
Speaker 2: you typically wouldn't see on the water, and I want
Speaker 2: to learn about their experiences that they have, And so
Speaker 2: I started the Awkward Angler podcast and it's an authentic
Speaker 2: series talking about fishing storytelling with folks in the outdoor industry,
Speaker 2: and so it's different people's experiences in the outdoors anyway.
Speaker 2: It's just these conversations that are typically either taboo.
Speaker 3: To have or awkward.
Speaker 2: That's kind of the name of the name, because you know,
Speaker 2: it is awkward to learn how to fly fish, and
Speaker 2: the things that I like to bring up about the
Speaker 2: industry and point out is awkward to talk about.
Speaker 1: And along the way, she picked up some fans, some
Speaker 1: of whom traveled great distances to spend a day on
Speaker 1: the water with her.
Speaker 2: I've had a transcuple request me and it was like
Speaker 2: a surprise for the partner's birthday and it was really
Speaker 2: cool to see her like wide up. She's like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, you booked new Erica.
Speaker 3: This is awesome.
Speaker 2: So I typically have a lot of clients that are
Speaker 2: on my age. Most of them are women, women of color.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of non binary trans folks, and
Speaker 2: so I typically get those clients that are have been
Speaker 2: historically excluded in the industry.
Speaker 1: But as Erica sees it, she's not just introducing people
Speaker 1: to fishing, she's reconnecting them with the natural world.
Speaker 2: Because I've always found fly fishing as a gateway towards conservation.
Speaker 2: The more that you spend time in the outdoors and
Speaker 2: these beautiful areas, the more that you want to protect it.
Speaker 2: And so it's kind of become this like I guess
Speaker 2: like passion, I guess mission for me, and so that's
Speaker 2: kind of how I fell into that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had said that you see the fishing industry
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways as a lot of people taking,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to make it a more reciprocal, harmonious relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I find it really important to have a relationship
Speaker 2: with everything.
Speaker 3: You know, we really need to protect.
Speaker 2: Our water and our air and the areas that we
Speaker 2: recreate and live in. There's a term called hojo in
Speaker 2: my culture, and that's bringing balance and harmony in your life,
Speaker 2: and so that's on a personal level, but with all
Speaker 2: things and so I find that really important to bring
Speaker 2: into guiding.
Speaker 1: And of course Erica and her clients have a lot
Speaker 1: of fun out there.
Speaker 2: It's funny because they always recognize they're like, why is
Speaker 2: every other boat so serious? And we have like music going,
Speaker 2: We're having a good time, and you know, we can
Speaker 2: actually shape the way that we want this to go.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be this one strict way to
Speaker 2: do things. And so I think that's really fun to
Speaker 2: be able to play around with and get other people
Speaker 2: that wouldn't normally experience it, and we get to experience
Speaker 2: it how they want to and how they're comfortable with
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 1: So, after taking some leaps of faith and catching her
Speaker 1: fair share of trees, Erica Nelson has established herself as
Speaker 1: a sought after fishing guide. But while it seems like
Speaker 1: a dream to get to share the thing you love
Speaker 1: so much with others day in and day out, you
Speaker 1: have to be careful.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: See, that's the thing of like why I didn't want
Speaker 2: to guide because I was like, I like fishing too much.
Speaker 2: But I definitely continue to hold my boundaries of having
Speaker 2: that balance, and so there are times where I've learned
Speaker 2: how to say no and be able to take time out.
Speaker 1: For myself because Erica knows that, just like a river's
Speaker 1: fish supply, our passions are precious resources that need to
Speaker 1: be protected. So while she'll continue guiding, Erica will be
Speaker 1: doing a little less of it as she starts on
Speaker 1: yet another new adventure in her life, building a fly
Speaker 1: fishing guide school of her own, one aimed at making
Speaker 1: the more inclusive and welcoming to a wider array of people.
Speaker 1: So if you've been stuck in a professional rut lately
Speaker 1: and been dreaming of a new outdoorsy career manifesting your
Speaker 1: next adventure, maybe you should give Erica a call. But
Speaker 1: if she doesn't pick up, don't take offense. Just leave
Speaker 1: a message because there's a good chance that eric and
Speaker 1: Nelson is taking a little time away from her work
Speaker 1: life to do what she loves, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: her dad is thrilled about.
Speaker 2: He was in Las Vegas about it, and so he
Speaker 2: came out for a weekend and that's all we did.
Speaker 2: He was we'd wake up a breakfast and go fishing
Speaker 2: all day and then come back up out of.
Speaker 3: The canyon, have dinner, and then repeat.
Speaker 2: And it was so much fun because it was a
Speaker 2: really one and the fishing was really awesome, but it's
Speaker 2: just a great way to connect with my dad.
Speaker 1: For on the job. I'm Avery Thompson.