"The way you fish for yellowfish in Lesotho is unreal, getting up on the elevation with radios. Very visual, beautiful setting, fantastic fish."
Quite often, there’s an over-simplification around our life choices and the repercussions thereof. PATH A (parent approved): Get a job, get a haircut and a shave and, if you work hard and smart, you can retire in thirty to forty years’ time. Path B: Don’t get a real job and go off doing something you like, like fishing or rafting or skiing. The real jobsters will envy you and pay you money to take them places. But, if you chose B, the blue pill of running water and fresh air and nature, chances are you’ll spend much of your life wondering if you can pay the rent and how long you can do the job for. In reality, there’s a broad spectrum across which we all fall. Some, the extremists, live 24-7 in the markets of high finance, or on the flats and in the jungles. Most of us occupy the space in between, fighting for both a living and a life. Off the back of his New York stint, White seems to have cracked the best of both worlds. He’s a guy who can both comprehend high finance and then morph into guide mode delivering clients the fishy highs of their lives. He can travel the world fly fishing, investing his time and money wisely and ethically and still get home to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to be with his wife and infant son. The werewolf of Wall Street has his cake and is eating it. White says, “I look at my life as a hub and spoke model. I’m in the centre as the hub and then I’ve got Abaco Lodge and Bair’s Lodge, I write for Fly Fisherman Magazine, I host trips with Yellow Dog, I still guide
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and I have Indifly. All these things are the spokes, they all help move the wheel along. They all contribute, they’re not unique from each other. It’s allowed me to create a pretty dynamic life.” His two-year hedge fund experience in New York not only gave him a practical MBA in high finance, but allowed him to think big picture. That’s resulted in a competitive advantage in the fly fishing space because he understands businesses, money and how to access it, but White also gained insight into what people - both the clientele and investors - want. “I understand how businesses work, how balance sheets work, how cash flow works, how leverage works, how to read contracts general business acumen that I apply all the time in what I do. At this point it gives me a real competitive edge because fly fishing is a highly fragmented mom and pop scene, generally driven by passion. For me, it’s a real balance. The lodges in the Bahamas are businesses, not toys. I am not a trust fund kid. Everything I do has a very detailed analysis behind it. From the business side, it’s a game changer because now, if there’s a fishing lodge for sale, I can understand the business economics of it. If the business make sense and the price is right, I can figure out where the money comes from. I don’t have a million dollars, I definitely don’t have ten million dollars, but if it’s for
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