These days, being a fly fishing guide is not as much about a long beard with left-over pizza, a giant chew in your cheek and a dog who will stay in your car all day while you are on the river. No, no! Yes, you might be able to still slide by with that in the outskirts of Montana or places where guides are the norm and grow like "weed" in northern California. An above average guide these days needs to know the ins and outs of Social Media, blogging and how each post is intertwined with Tweeting and FB'ing while upkeeping the reports page on the "so last year" website's reports page. This is just the tip of the iceberg as now the guides leading much of the industry also should be toting high-end DSLR cameras and actually know what to do with them, and also be knowledgeable with regards to equipment and trends related to such across the region if not the country, in fly fishing that is. Not easy to find and more and more, any Tom, Dick and Harry can buy a domain from Go Daddy for $9.99 a year on the new year end special and with the cheap software out there be up and running with "Guide Service" in a matter of a week. So be it, it is the American way but for those looking out for themselves and their hard earned buck, do some due diligence on who you are spending $400-$500 a day with and make sure they are what they say they are. Dig deep, ask questions and don't fall for the bait and switch. Make sure they are going to live up to what they say they are going to because nothing ticks me off more than listening to people talk about how they fell for something they read on a website only to get railroaded into something else. So today, we are trying to be more diligent about blogging by having our ENTIRE staff blog more than once every 6 months. The idea here is that we wear our knowledge, stewarship and respect for those fish and their homes we depend on on our shirt sleeves and offer up a broad perspective on our fisheries, the state they are actually in and what is being done about taking better care of them. So, hopefully after this point, you will see some new perspectives on fly fishing in our world other than just mine!! Read on and don't hesitate to give each of us the amount of grief you feel necessary, we are thick skinned, at least on here and willing to listen as good guides should!