Have Your Boat Ready to Fish

When I was up fishing for a living as a guide, I came up with a saying for myself, because there's always a lot of noise around. There's always a lot of things that need to be done.

In that job there was always work to do: rods, downriggers, extra stuff you wanted to get to. But the fact is, you have to be ready to fish, because you've got guests coming down at 7 o'clock in the morning and they're going to fish all day. So I boiled it down to this: have your boat ready to fish. Once it's ready to fish, you can work on anything else you want.

Have your boat ready to fish. Everything else comes after that.

I've carried that home with me.

Ready to Hunt

Now it's hunting season. I've got a million things to do and I've been gone all summer. But hunting season is here and I need to go do it. So I've got to be ready to hunt, and then do everything else.

Ready to Trap

And as I transition into trapping season, it's the same thing. Get ready to trap, and everything else comes after that.

To live this outdoor, adventurous life, I can't let the everyday to-do list bog me down. So my priorities follow the season. First it was my outdoor job, which was fishing. Then I had to go get meat for the family. And now my new job is trapping. Be ready to trap, then everything else.

That's where I'm at. I think there's real wisdom in it, and I hope you can apply it to your life somehow.

Have your boat ready to fish.

Have a great day.

— Lyman