I don’t remember exactly where the phrase first came up for me this year, the idea of following the thread. Likely in a random social post over on LinkedIn where I need to sound a weird mix of profound and professional. Even more likely is that I was talking about your career and how, if you follow all the seemingly random threads you encounter, it can lead you to interesting places.
Initially, I was thinking about how someone recommended a book to me, The Sky and the Patio, by local writer Don Gayton. I reached out to Don and we connected for a conversation, some wine, and eventually went fishing. He’s a local grasslands ecologist and his book of essays got me thinking more about the land around me and the plants and animals that make up our ecosystem. Not long after that, I was contacted by a local landscaper who was working on a project involving local plants and needed help with a written portion of it. The way it tied back to Don was fascinating.
The idea stuck. The thought about the threads that exist all around us. The notion that if we pick up any one of those threads and follow it, something interesting will happen.
When you go beyond work, it’s something that we do as fly anglers all the time. We hear of a spot. We see a little thread of blue on a map. And it lingers in our brains until we start to follow it. Eventually, we either find fish or a little bit of adventure. Sometimes we find lost pieces of another time – fish that no longer exist, remnants of old stocking habits, cabins, or even suitcases. None of it exists, though, until we pick up that thread in a moment of curiosity and follow it.
All through 2024 I found myself following various threads. My brother and I followed dreams we’d been having about fishing spots on rivers we fished often. I explored new lakes that I’d heard people talk about for years. They led to experiences, both interesting and mediocre, that would help define a fairly strange year.
Outside of fishing, the threads were both harder to define and very obvious. The biggest one I noticed was something that I’ve been doing for a fairly long time – writing about fishing and the outdoors. Not counting this blog, which I’ve been running for years, I’ve been writing more about fishing and the outdoors for other publications. I sold a piece to Fly Fusion Magazine last year and wrote some outdoors-related articles for the US Air Force. I’ve even done some writing for National Geographic. Among all those things, I plugged away at dozens of personal essays, most of them fishing-related.
It all came together this year with two big moments, for me anyway. I sold a piece to The Flyfish Journal and I spoke at the Outdoor Media Summit. The first was big because when I first started sending out my writing to magazines, getting into The Flyfish Journal was my ultimate goal. I wanted nothing more than to see my name on the masthead. And, while I haven’t seen my copy of the issue I’m in, yet, knowing that it’s there and that I hit that goal is like that moment when you finally find the fish people have been whispering about for years. You know the one. It’s either unnaturally large for the system or shouldn’t be there. I’ve written about them before. They’re moments of pure joy because the truth is often not easy to figure out. Anglers are notoriously loose with the facts when telling stories, so sometimes it even takes a while to find the right thread.
The Outdoor Media Summit (OMS) was different. It was more like an unexpected day of fishing or the moment you find one more beer in the bottom of your bag. The opportunity came out of left field, kinda. I’d connected with another writer earlier in the year and a handful of months later she posted about needing a panelist to chat about marketing yourself as a freelancer, something I’ve been doing for more than two decades. I made a one-off comment about how easy I could talk about it and the next thing I knew I was on my way to Montana for the second time this year.
That time in Montana, both the first trip and second, provided an obvious thread. I was surrounded by outdoors writers and creatives, telling stories, talking about the industry, and generally just connecting with people who had the same passions as I did. It was the first time in a very long time that I’d been in a room like that and it was incredible.
I walked away from both OMS and the River Summit (the other event) feeling invigorated about writing in a way I hadn’t for years. Better yet, a conversation with another writer at River Summit (the wonderful Hilary Hutchenson) led to me finally sitting down and writing a story I’d been thinking about for more than a decade. When I hit OMS, I managed to sell the story to an editor with whom I was chatting casually.
Had I not followed that thread into Montana, I would never have had that conversation and would never have sold that piece.
Just like with those wandering blue lines on a map, not all threads play out quite this well. It’s a game of trial and error more than a story of success. I’ve spent just as much time exploring rivers that are too shallow to fish or simply don’t exist anymore as I have spent discovering the best fishing I’ve ever experienced. But, until you get out there and take a chance on a thread, you’ll never know what’s at the other end of it.
Exploring the possibilities is often the most rewarding part of life.
Leave a Reply