Speaker 1: Wind down with Janet Kramer, an I'm Heeart radio podcast.
Speaker 2: I want to introduce you to On the Job and
Speaker 2: host Avery Thompson. Avery shares stories of people making changes
Speaker 2: in their professional and personal lives. Whether it's a successful
Speaker 2: athlete transitioning into a new career off the field, a
Speaker 2: fly fishing tour guide trying to introduce a new segment
Speaker 2: of folks to the joys of the outdoors, or a
Speaker 2: stadium beer and hot dog hawker who doubles as a
Speaker 2: CEO of a red hot startup. We'll find out what
Speaker 2: drives them and what lies ahead. These are heartfelt stories
Speaker 2: of people finding their lives. Work on the Job is
Speaker 2: brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. This week, Avery
Speaker 2: talks to a fly fishing guide who's introducing a whole
Speaker 2: new group of people to her outdoorsy Paradise.
Speaker 3: Welcome to On the Job Today. We're talking with Eric
Speaker 3: and Nelson, a fly fishing guide in Colorado committed to
Speaker 3: making the fishing community more diverse and more fun. Workdays
Speaker 3: for Eric and Nelson begins softly.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I just like to just sit at the water,
Speaker 1: especially right when I arrive, sitting there and observing what's
Speaker 1: going on and then just kind of connecting with that
Speaker 1: place is really important to me.
Speaker 3: Being a fly fishing guide in Crusted Butte, Colorado, Erica
Speaker 3: gets to make a connection with some of the most
Speaker 3: beautiful places in the whole world, especially if you're as
Speaker 3: excited about fishing as she is.
Speaker 1: Within ten minutes, there's the Slate River in the East River,
Speaker 1: and that's really fun for a bunch of little brook trout.
Speaker 1: And then there's the gunnisin which is gold metal water.
Speaker 1: So as the Taylor River further up on the tailor
Speaker 1: there are is like some major mega trout up there.
Speaker 1: It's all catch and release. And then above that there's
Speaker 1: like some creeks, so it's a great place to take
Speaker 1: people learning how to fly fish. There's like open meadows
Speaker 1: and so it really just depends.
Speaker 3: But you might be surprised to learn that for someone
Speaker 3: whose job has become taking people out on the water.
Speaker 3: Erica didn't always enjoy fishing.
Speaker 1: No, I actually hated it as a kid. My dad
Speaker 1: loved fly fishing, and he tried to take me and
Speaker 1: even spin fishing as a kid, just stut a lake
Speaker 1: and I just remember hating it so much.
Speaker 3: So it's no wonder that Erica's path to becoming a
Speaker 3: fishing guide had more twists and turns than a meandering river.
Speaker 3: At the beginning of her work life, Erica was working
Speaker 3: at a boutique hotel.
Speaker 1: It was funny because you know, this was the boutique
Speaker 1: hospitality world, and I would go rock climbing on the weekend,
Speaker 1: or I would go like camping with friends, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I just slept on a rock and these
Speaker 1: people were complaining about threads out in the sheets.
Speaker 3: So while Erica sat there in her boutique hotel dreaming
Speaker 3: of mountains in Alaska, a friend called her up and said, hey,
Speaker 3: why don't you come down to California and learn how
Speaker 3: to be a whitewater rafting guide.
Speaker 1: I think I said no, And then that afternoon I
Speaker 1: had a really hard meeting with my boss and then
Speaker 1: I called her that like evening and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I take it back, I'm coming down. So it kind
Speaker 1: of all happened really quickly.
Speaker 3: But Erica isn't one to sit back and get comfy.
Speaker 3: So after doing the whitewater rafting thing for a while,
Speaker 3: she moved up to Wyoming, and while she was there,
Speaker 3: she noticed that a lot of people were fishing, and.
Speaker 1: So I was like, you know, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: try this out. So I just went on YouTube and
Speaker 1: tried whipping it around and really wasn't successful in the beginning,
Speaker 1: and there was a writing curve. But with FI fishing,
Speaker 1: it was like this thing that I wanted to be
Speaker 1: good at. I was like, what would it be like
Speaker 1: if I just caught one fish. I just had like
Speaker 1: made a goal for myself to catch one fish and
Speaker 1: then I'm going to move on to the next thing.
Speaker 3: But despite it taking an entire year for Erica to
Speaker 3: catch her first fish, she started to see how people
Speaker 3: could get so into it.
Speaker 1: I noticed that there wasn't like a lot of women
Speaker 1: of color, especially you know, fishing, having indigenous roots. And
Speaker 1: I got a lot of requests from people of like
Speaker 1: take me fishing, you know, And I'm like, man, I like,
Speaker 1: there's this need in this calling that I'm seeing in
Speaker 1: this industry that we need more female guides in the industry.
Speaker 1: So when I moved to Colorado, I like, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: this calling almost, if you will, And so I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to do a season and I ended
Speaker 1: up having a very busy summer of just like people
Speaker 1: from all over the world really.
Speaker 3: And of course Erica and her clients have a lot
Speaker 3: of fun out there.
Speaker 1: It's funny because they always recognize they're like, why is
Speaker 1: every other boat so serious? And we have like music going,
Speaker 1: We're having a good time, and we can actually shape
Speaker 1: the way that we want this to go. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be this one strict way to do things.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's really fun to be able
Speaker 1: to play around with and get other people that wouldn't
Speaker 1: normally experience it, and we get to experience it how
Speaker 1: they want to and how they're comfortable with doing it.
Speaker 3: So while she'll continue guiding, Erica will be doing a
Speaker 3: little less of it as she starts on yet another
Speaker 3: new adventure in her life, building a fly fishing guide
Speaker 3: school her own, which, by the way, her dad is
Speaker 3: thrilled about.
Speaker 1: It's just a great way to connect with my dad.
Speaker 3: For on the job, I'm Avery Thompson.
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