Learning the Ropes

Posted on December 12, 2004 by Steve Mealman 

There are some skills you learn in duck hunting that carry into different aspects of your life, and that is definitely true about being a guide. I also believe that to be a great guide you have to hunt with or be around great guides. Few people are born with all the tools needed to guide. Being a truly outstanding guide doesn't mean you shot your limit of ducks every day. There is much more to being a guide than that. It takes unbelievable patients, people skills, and an enthusiasm that is second to none. That's why being able to hunt, guide, and be friends with outstanding guides like Justin and Lyles is such a great experience.

A brief history on how I got hooked up with this motley crew goes as follows. I met up with Justin and Lyles at a retriever trial that my dad was judging in Northfield, MN. I was working a winger and blowing a duck call in all three series of the event, and after Justin offered me a job as a guide at Yellow Dog Lodge. I wasn't able to do it because I was in college and my winter break didn't really fit with the season in Arkansas. It wasn't until they opened Firewater Lodge that I could fit it in with my class Schedule, and I could make the trip from Bemidji, MN to Victor, SD. So I jumped at the chance to be a guide in an area that I know pretty well.

Looking back a year later and having a season of guiding under my belt. The two months I spent at Firewater I learned more about customer service and public relations than I have in college studying for Manufacturing Management. That is a main point Justin and Lyles stressed to me and Josh Stickland that any body can kill birds, but killing birds doesn't make a great guide. Justin always stressed for us that this was just another day of work, but for our guests it was a chance to make great memories with friends and family.

That there is "a guy lying in bed at night counting down the days till he gets to come to Firewater and hunt."

That hit home with me because I have been on plenty of guided hunts from Minnesota to Texas that at best have been disappointing. So I tried to take every guided experience I have been on and learn from them. To try to give my clients a great hunt, and a memory they can relay to friends.

Although some of the memories I'd like to forget, but Justin and Lyles will never let me forget. For example the time I threw out my decoys, and it wasn't until it got light I realized half my decoys didn't have weight. So they were floating away to the other side of the lake. Or, the time were I had to give a force fetching lesson to my dog in the middle of a slough waist deep in mud; wearing socks and boxers.

The experiences I have had and the life lessons I have learned over the course of a year have been in-valuable. The people skills and the enthusiasm Justin taught me to have will stay with me in every aspect of my life. It's the memories that I have made with these two great guys that will stay with me that count the most.