Power of 3 Indigenous Guide Program

Teaming Up to Recruit Native Guides

There is a mantra amongst fly fishing lodge managers that goes like this, “If the fishing is good, nothing else matters. If the fishing is bad, everything else matters.” How true it is! Catch so many fish that your arm falls off and you don’t really care where you sleep or what you eat. Cast all day without a single tug and the temperature of the ice cubes in your cocktail that night suddenly becomes an issue.

The one person who can actually manage these wide mood swings we all experience as anglers is your guide. A great guide is the make-it-or-break-it element of every fishing trip. If you’re having a fantastic day it’s probably because of him (or her), if you’re surviving a bad day and still have a smile on your face it’s almost for sure because of your guide. But great guides aren’t just born, they’re usually the product of lodge owners, outfitters and other guides, who are exceptional in their own right and have taken the time to pay if forward.

At Wild On The Fly we are deeply committed to helping nurture new guides. But we’re taking it a step further by ensuring that the local communities in the areas we fish profit directly from our efforts. Fly fishing owes a great deal to the destinations it exploits, and it hasn’t always been a great steward of those resources. Our new Power of 3 Indigenous Guide Program endeavors to recruit potential guides from the native populations within specific fisheries. We firmly believe that local guides are the best at what they do, and they offer traveling anglers a genuine cultural enrichment to their trip. You as a Travel Club member can be an integral part of this campaign!

Here’s How it Works...

When you book a trip to one of our participating lodges we’ll ask you (totally on a voluntary basis) if you would like to donate an additional 1% of the cost of your trip towards the program. As an example, you would donate $32 on a $3,200 week’s trip to The Palometa Club in Ascension Bay, Mexico. If you say yes, then Wild On The Fly will match that amount and the participating lodge will match that amount. Suddenly your $32 becomes $96, hence the Power of 3!

If just 100 anglers going to The Palometa Club participated during one season we would raise nearly $10,000, and that would go a long way towards clothing, equipping and training an apprentice native guide for a year.

In 2010 Wild On The Fly will institute the Power of 3 Indigenous Guide Program at three terrific destinations that already have very strong guide programs, and the desire to train new talent in becoming the best in the business:

1) The Palometa Club in Ascension Bay, Mexico – supporting an apprentice guide from the Mayan population of the lobster fishing village of Punta Allen, Quintana Roo.

2) Chime Lodge in Patagonia – supporting an apprentice guide from the Mapuche Indian population on the reservation near Junin de los Andes, Neuquen, Argentina.

3) Rainbow River Lodge, Alaska – supporting an apprentice guide from the native Yu’pik population of subsistence fishermen in the Bristol Bay/Iliamna area.

All donated funds will be administered through our 501-3c non-profit arm, and are totally tax-deductible. If you’re planning a trip to one of these premier destinations please ask us for details on our specific program there. Then become a part of something truly worthwhile for fly fishing travel.