Skin in the Game with Gabe Lefebvre

Gabe Lefebvre remembers Ocala, Florida, as a great place to be a kid. The kind of place that lets you do the untethered things kids do best. Wild lake-puddled expanses to fish, hunt, explore and find oneself. But also, near enough to the Panhandle and Keys to project those youthful enthusiasms beyond the backyard. So, naturally, he and his buddies spent their early years imagining the possibilities – pitching poppers by day, dreaming of what whales the ocean might hold by night.
 
“Our whole existence revolved around learning how to cast far, learning how to cast in the wind, learning how to throw huge flies with no end in sight,” Lefebvre says.
 
Today, the sweat-equity has cemented into an active on-water career. Lefebvre is entering his third season as a full-time guide at South Fork Lodge, on Idaho’s South Fork Snake River. When the Swan Valley season frosts over, around Oct. 1, the 28-year-old trades the 4X tippet for 80lb fluoro and heads south, working alongside the hard-charging squad at Los Locos in Magdalena Bay, MX.

Lefebvre went to college in Jacksonville, at the University of North Florida – where the biggest academic hurdle was living minutes from the ramp. “We skipped class to go fishing all the time. Like all the time.” Those regular truancies led to valuable lessons in economics. Fishing in general, but especially for a college kid living on cafeteria burritos, puts a serious leak in the wallet. And that meant adding “fundraising 101” to his offsite curriculum.
 
Panhandling in the digital era looks different. And Lefebvre and his buddies quickly went to work DMing the Big Fishing brands and bargaining for assistance. “I was paying close attention to social media at the time, and Instagram was really taking off – with flyfishing photography in particular,” he says. “So, I started hitting up companies when I was a freshman. I’d ask to trade photos for dollars to take a trip.” Sometimes it worked, throwing a temporary patch on the wet wallet. Other times it resulted in stickers and swag. Lefebvre graduated college in 2021, with a major in media and advertising – and closets full of graphic fishing tees from his burgeoning side-hustle.

He moved from Florida to Montana that same year, using his Rockies relocation as an opportunity to combine two passions – guiding for a paycheck, while capturing the essence of his everyday outdoor world with a camera. Across the sea of noise that is the internet, what sets the meh apart from the hell-yea depends on who you ask. What most anglers can agree on is that outdoor beyond-cooler brand YETI has done a watch-worthy job raising the storytelling benchmark with their high-caliber, brilliantly shot YETI Presents films. When good friend and pro photographer Dylan Schmitz threw Lefebvre a heads-up on an open role at the brand, the newly minted Montanan rolled out a freshly crafted resume. 

"Getting in at ground-level with YETI’s marketing team was a life-changing experience,” Lefebvre says, “because it really taught me how the best in the industry do it. And I loved the role. But honestly, I didn’t love living in Austin.”

When a guiding job at Tordrillo Mountain Lodge popped up, Lefebvre lugged his love of fishing to Alaska. And a couple of seasons later, he left that remote wilderness gig to chase the famous stonefly hatches on the South Fork Snake. “Oliver [White] wasn’t looking for a new guide at the time, but he extended an invitation to come check it out,” Lefebvre says. He moved to Victor without an official offer and landed a full-time guide spot at South Fork Lodge shortly thereafter.
 
“It’s really a perfect example of how quick-decisions can lead to big opportunities in this industry – especially when the right people have your back,” he says. “Oliver introduced me to the team at Los Locos, and these two very different fisheries now define my existence.”
 
And somewhere between stroking oars in Idaho and pinning throttles in Mag Bay, there lies a balance.
 
“For me it’s important to have a job like South Fork if you’re gonna survive Los Locos. You need to have one to do the other successfully,” he says. “Running at the intensity you need to run at Los Locos, year-round, you’re bound to burn out quick. It’s unhealthy. Going back to a place like the South Fork that’s run so smoothly is the perfect reset.”
 
Where there’s equilibrium there’s a way. And for Lefebvre, the kid from Ocala, he wouldn’t change a thing: “This game. This grind. This prospect of a fishing life with no end in sight. At this point in my career I just want to fish. And I want to take it to a nutty level, so that I can always return back to a good baseline – and then do it all over again.”