New Opportunities, New Friends, New Skills…..

This past weekend I traveled to Florida to help train Matt Calderaro, the Director of Fly Fishing & Grande Lakes Outfitters, on the use of our products they are implementing in the Ritz Carlton Emotion Kayaks Flat-Water Kayak School. Every once and a while you run into people in the outdoor world that ‘just totally get it’, and Matt is absolutely one of those great, special people. Matt not only lives, eats and breathes fishing for 35 years, but also devotes his life into making the world and the environment a better place for people, fish, reptiles, birds, and even plants to thrive in.

Life is funny, I had my typical F.A.B (Features, Advantages, Benefits) training kit in my backpack, you know, the one I can disseminate in my sleep for this ‘training session’. But just when you think you will be the one educating, the tables get turned, and my family and I ended up being the ones who walked away with an incredibly enjoyable experience we will remember for a very long time.

Matt knows kayaks as well or better than many of the people I meet in our industry, and my FAB training actually became a minimal part of our time together. Stability and maneuverability became the most important benefits here. The real treat came from the soul of a person who is out there truly living his daily life helping others learn important and extremely valuable lessons in our environment. For example, how invasive plants, clams, and fish are doing major damage to incredibly beautiful areas of our backcountry, and so quickly it is truly scary.

What else Matt expertly and patiently did was teach my son Slade the fine art of casting for fish out of a kayak in such tight areas you would never think of fishing there. I am probably among the most impatient people in the whole world, and this would have been a disaster for me to even try. Slade ended up catching and releasing 3 or 4 beautiful bass he will be dreaming about for years. I can hear him telling his friends at school all the details of that wonderful morning where Matt taught us all about the balance of nature being brutally changed, and seeing the effects first hand. How many of Slade’s friends do you think fished out of a kayak this weekend, and learned how to do it right? I have a strong feeling that will all start to change :) Slade will help that process along, thanks to Matt teaching him the ‘right way’.

I took the time out of an insanely busy schedule to help (however I could) a passionate guy start up a kayak school in a place where golfers ruled for years and now people seem to be more interested in kayaking, and I witnessed the perfect model of how to do it. The people that go through Matt’s course will undoubtedly buy a kayak. Hopefully an Emotion Kayak, but if they buy any kayak we will all be happy. My hat is off to all the guides, the on-water educators, and the passionate people out there that are making a real difference and being rewarded mostly by the experience. Thank you!

Matt, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your passion, your intelligence of the outdoors and the environment, your genuine commitment to helping people and your planet, and your kindness. You have affected us in a great way, and I am that much more on a mission to spread the word, to get people out on the waterways experiencing nature at its finest, and for living life for far greater rewards that the almighty dollar. We love you Bro, keep it up!

Tom