Being a trout bum and having a dating life is as close to an impossible endeavor as one can attempt to pursue, and since I am proudly a trout bum, I can tell you just how hard fitting a girl into that lifestyle really is.
Perhaps I should back up for a moment, for those of you not familiar with the term "trout bum." A trout bum is simply a fisherman so dedicated to fishing, he spends all of his time and energy on getting back to the water and chasing trout. As Dub Paetz of troutser.com put it, you might be a trout bum if “you have spent more money on fly fishing gear this year than you paid for your car.”
That statement is true of me. I spent $2,800 on my car last October, and since then, I’ve spent in the neighborhood of $5,000 on fishing gear. Crazy, I know, but as the legendary John Gierach once said, “If people don’t occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you’re doing something wrong.”
I was once late for a dance in high school (Sadie Hawkins, I do believe) because I was fishing and lost track of the time. I once drove for seven hours to fish a stretch of water for two hours. Heck, I’ve even taken girls on first dates fishing because I had no idea what else to do with my free time.
As my fishing adventures have become more and more frequent, thinking that I’d ever find a way to balance my unbridled passion for fishing and the desire to have a girlfriend seemed ludicrous. Then, as the old saying goes, I met a girl. Now I have a bit of perspective on how to balance things, and maybe this can help someone else’s dating life.
I still think about fishing all the time, and I get out on water as much as possible. I still have fishing buddies with whom I go on crazy day-long trips all in the name of catching trout. The trick is, I’ve learned how to balance that with caring about someone else and thinking less of myself.
I’ll end with what a great fishing friend of mine once said to me. We were sitting on our float tubes on a lonely lake, discussing life (as is so often the case when fishing), and my friend said, “You’ll meet a girl who makes you want to be with her more than out here on this lake. And when you do, you’ll be happy to spend more time with her than with the fish.”
I've met that girl, but the point of what my friend said is simple. Once you meet someone you care enough about to give certain things up for, you’ll be happy to do it. The balance in life will become much more apparent, and easier to undertake.
Take what happened to me just last week. My girlfriend lives a bit of a ways away from me right now, right in the middle of some my favorite fishing holes. I drove up to see her, about six and a half hours round trip. Instead of just heading straight for the river as I usually do when I'm in that part of the state, I picked up my girlfriend, and we hiked along the river for an hour or so while I fished a little bit. After that, we had dinner and I left.
I balanced my two loves very well that night, and thankfully I have a girlfriend who understands what fishing means to me. This lesson of balance and supporting each other is one we can all learn from.
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