YELLOW DOG INTERNSHIP

REFLECTION ESSAY

My internship with Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures (YDFFA) was an eye-opening experience into how writing fits into a business’s plan for success and growth. My position centered around providing information on the website that would draw readers into Yellow Dog’s websites and the products they offer. To do this it takes a lot of research, comparison, and collaboration with the team to create articles that produce beneficial content for the consumer but are also easily readable and helpful in directing them to our services. 

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Fly fishing is a large part of my life as a hobby and job, and I was thrilled to be able to work with a company that is passionate about helping anglers fly fish destinations all over the world and close to home. Bozeman is a large fly fishing community and YDFFA is a prominent member in growing the sport of fly fishing to new levels. During my time at YDFFA, I was fortunate enough to work with Carter Lyles, the Marketing Director, for the Fall Semester of 2021. Going into the internship, I was unsure of my role in the company and what exactly they needed from a writing intern, if anything, but during the interview they mentioned a need for article writing on their website. Previously, I had very limited knowledge or experience in creating web articles and it was interesting to learn about the different tactics used in marketing to make them rank the highest by search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The information coincided well with the class on an introduction to web design I took this semester that used similar principles to describe how web pages are built and operate. Initially, I learned how to build them by comparing the websites that matched the keywords we wanted to rank for, like “trout dry flies” or “best pike flies”, and exceeding their allotted points awarded by search engines by including links, headings, and more words. 

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That was only the initial step in creating these articles. Next came a lot of research because I have never fished for bonefish in the Bahamas, Atlantic Salmon in Canada, or Peacock Bass in Brazil, but luckily many people at YDFFA have been on such trips and they have a wealth of information. But oftentimes I tried to figure out information before going to the Program Directors or the Program Assistants. I did a lot of Googling for fly patterns that work well for a specific species and read a lot of articles that were similar to the one I was trying to create. In this way, it helped me judge the competition level of the writing I was doing and it was valuable information to understand what I should add to my article. But ultimately the final say on information came down to the Program Directors who have the knowledge and experience in that region of the world. 

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Over half of the articles I wrote were concerned with species I had never seen at the end of my line so it was a lot of communication with people in the office, just by asking them “what’s your favorite permit fly?” and asking them about the nuances of fishing in that particular destination. To effectively write these articles I needed to be able to convey the lived experience of using these flies, even though I never have, and it was difficult at first. But as I wrote more drafts of articles I was able to form a pattern that I felt was convincing to an audience that is in search of reputable knowledge on the information they search. 

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Additionally, I was put on tasks that did not require much writing for the web but focused on the website in regards to keeping information up to date and ensuring the appeal of the locations based on how many photos they had on their page. One project I worked on involved a large amount of research on fly lines needed for each destination and species offered by YDFFA. YDFFA has over 200 destinations in 36 different states and countries with a variety of target species. This project was fairly intensive and required a lot of collaboration with the team to create an outline to give to Scientific Angler, who would then input their lines as recommendations for each species and destination available through YDFFA. This helped me become very familiar with the destinations and the species they catch in that area. 

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I also helped choose pictures for social media, especially at times when Shane, the social media manager, or Carter, was out of the office and posts needed to be pre-approved before they could go up on Instagram. YDFFA has thousands of photos they have taken from various destinations so the only hard part was choosing photos that displayed popular destinations.

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In my mind, the internship was a success, I learned a lot from my mentor, Carter, and the rest of the Yellow Dog team about the fly fishing industry and marketing. It is definitely a path I want to pursue in the future and the ability to intern at YDFFA is a huge help in entering the outdoor industry. My time spent with the company helped me understand what it would take to continue working towards the goal of entering the fly fishing industry out of college and pursuing a career.