Podcast: Learning from Your Mistakes

Montana fly-fishing guide and kids’ fly fishing camp director Simon Perkins talks with Tom Rosenbauer about “lessons learned the hard way.”

Perkins: “I think my first ‘lesson learned the hard way’ was when I was five years old and called up my grandfather and said ‘Grandpa, let’s go fishing.’ And he said ‘OK I’ll pick you up at four. He pulled into the driveway — I don’t know where my mom was at the time, I think in the office in back — and I was there with my rod and my little vest and I hopped in and we went fishing. It was in the middle of summer, so it was long days, and we stayed out til way past dark. We had a really great time. When we came back and pulled in my mom saw the headlights she came running outside and I knew immediately something was wrong. I realized at that point — and my grandfather realized at that point — that I had never told my mom that I was going fly fishing with my grandfather.”