Monte Burke writing at Forbes.com recently posted an interview with Midcurrent’s founder and publisher Marshall Cutchin.
From interview, his entry into the fly fishing guide biz was prompted by a workplace conversation many fly fishers dream about –
I had a job as the director of operations at a company and my boss came in one day and asked me to fudge some figures. And I said ‘how about I just leave?’ I was ready to go anyway. I found a boat in Ft. Myers and just decided that I would fish for a year and figure out what I was going to do with my life. I’d been fly fishing for tarpon since my sophomore year in college. I fished with a guide who told me he had some overflow and that I would make for an OK guide. So I got my captain’s license. That was 1985.
Then I started guiding on my own everyday and became totally enraptured with the whole flats environment. It wasn’t until I started spending every day out there they I understood what it was really all about. I was fortunate to fish with some top anglers back then, people like McGuane.
I think I’ll look back on those 11 years in Key West when I’m 75 and say they were the most important part of my life. It was a meditative experience, almost monastic. It taught me an enormous amount about myself, some of which I liked and some of which I didn’t.
MC shares some insights about aggregating content, intellectual curiosity and original works. Worth a read.
