Thrive: One Less Lawyer

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Legal fugitive Peter Blackman takes the bait.

By Elspeth Cisneros

Photos by Justin Bailie

Sitting at a desk surrounded by brochures for guided fishing trips and medi-vac health insurance, Peter Blackman can survey the Sacramento-based fly-fishing shop he runs with his partner, Gary Eplen. Blackman has done something of which many only dream. He gave up a high-pressure career to make a living at his hobby.

After nearly 30 years as a civil trial lawyer, Blackman found fly-fishing. He still puts in about the same amount of time at his shop as he did at his law practice, at least 60 hours per week, but finds the rewards far greater.

"This is a much nicer place to work," says Blackman, wearing a muted Hawaiian shirt and baseball cap sporting the shop logo, a trout. "People come here happy and leave happier."

Blackman didn't get passionate about fly fishing until later in life.

"My wife is the one who introduced me to it," says Blackman, 60. While in the middle of a series of lengthy trials, a friend mentioned he was going on a fly-fishing trip to Colorado. Despite protests that he couldn't get away from the office, his wife Carol arranged the trip. His secretary presented him with an airline ticket and a rearranged schedule when he arrived at his downtown Sacramento practice on a Monday morning. He had a blast, but kept toiling away as a lawyer. "I knew I wanted to get out, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do."

In the early 1990s, Blackman took a sabbatical and traveled the world for six months with Carol. "I knew I didn't want to go back to law, but I was getting antsy." Then, in 1996, American Fly Fishing owner Gary Eplen offered Blackman a job at the shop. He left the legal profession for good, and within a year his position had grown into joint ownership with Eplen.

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