Casting Afar (From "On The Job" with Avery Thompson)

For the 8th season of "On The Job," host Avery Thompson shares stories of folks making pivots in their professional - and personal - lives. Whether it's a successful athlete transitioning into a new career off the field, a fly fishing tour guide trying to introduce a new segment of folks to the joys of the outdoors, or a stadium beer and hot dog hawker who doubles as the CEO of a red-hot start-up, we'll find out what drives them, how they've managed their pivots and what lies ahead. Strap in for eight more entertaining and heartfelt stories of people finding their life's work. "On The Job" is brought to you by Express Employment Professions.

On today's episode, fly-fishing guide Erica Nelson is welcoming a whole new segment of folks into her outdoorsy paradise. https://www.awkwardangler.com/

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to on the job. Today, we're talking with Erica Nelson,
a fly fishing guide in Colorado committed to making the
fishing community more diverse and more fun workdays for Erica,
Nelson begins softly.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Sometimes I just like to just sit at the water,
especially right when I arrive. Sitting there and observing what's
going on and then just kind of connecting with that
place is really important to me.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Being a fly fishing guide in Crusted Butte, Colorado, Erica
gets to make a connection with some of the most
beautiful places in the whole world, especially if you're as
excited about fishing as she is.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Within ten minutes, there's the Slate River in the East River,
and that's really fun for a bunch of little brook trout.
And then there's the gunnisin which is gold metal water.
So as the Taylor River further up on the tailor
there are is like some major mega trout up there.
It's all catching release. And then above that there's like

(01:04):
some creeks, so it's a great place to take people
learning how to fly fish. There's like open meadows and
so it really just depends.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
But you might be surprised to learn that for someone
whose job has become taking people out on the water.
Erica didn't always enjoy fishing.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
No, I actually hated it as a kid. My dad
loved fly fishing and he tried to take me and
even spin fishing. As a kid, just doun a lake
and I just remember hating it so much.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
So it's no wonder that Erica's path to becoming a
fishing guide had more twists and turns than a meandering river.
At the beginning of her work life, Erica was working
at a boutique hotel.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
It was funny because you know, this was the boutique
hospitality world. And I would go rock climbing on the weekend,
or I would go like camping with friends, and I
was like, I just slept on a rock and these
people were complaining about threads out in the sheets.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
So while Erica sat there in her boutique hotel dreaming
of mountains in Alaska, a friend called her up and said, Hey,
why don't you come down to California and learn how
to be a whitewater rafting guide.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I think I said no, And then that afternoon I
had a really hard feting with my boss and then
I called her that evening and I was like, okay,
I take it back, I'm coming down. So it kind
of all happened really quickly.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
But Erica isn't one to sit back and get comfy.
So after doing the whitewater rafting thing for a while,
she moved up to Wyoming and while she was there,
she noticed that a lot of people were fishing.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
And so I was like, you know, I'm just going
to try this out. So I just went on YouTube
and tried whipping it around and really wasn't successful in
the beginning, and there was all rooting curve. But with
fi fishing, it was like this thing that I wanted
to be good at. I was like, what would it
be like if I just caught one fish. I just
had like made a goal for myself to catch one
fish and then I'm going to move on to the

(03:00):
next thing.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
But despite it taking an entire year for Erica to
catch her first fish, she started to see how people
could get so into it.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I noticed that there wasn't like a lot of women
of color, especially you know, fishing having indigenous roots. And
I got a lot of requests from people of like
taking me vision, you know, and I'm like, oh, man,
I'm like, there's this need in this calling that I'm
seeing in this industry that we need more female guides
in the industry. So when I moved to Colorado, I like,
I'm feeling this calling almost, if you will. And so

(03:31):
I was like, I'm just going to do a season,
and I ended up having a very busy summer of
just like people from all over the world, really.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
And of course Erica and her clients have a lot
of fun out there.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
It's funny because they always recognize they're like, why is
every other boat so serious? And we have like music going,
We're having a good time, and we can actually shape
the way that we want this to go. It doesn't
have to be this one strict way to do things.
And so I think that's really fun to be able
to play around with and get other people that wouldn't
normally experience it, and we get to experience it how

(04:05):
they want to and how they're comfortable with doing it.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
So while she'll continue guiding, Erica will be doing a
little less of it as she starts on yet another
new adventure in her life, building a fly fishing guide
school of her own, which, by the way, her dad
is thrilled about.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
It's just a great way to connect with my dad.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
For on the job. I'm Avery Thompson.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
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