The Beginnings

Growing up I never had much of an interest in fishing or hunting or anything like that. I liked to be outside, but I mostly just rode my bike around, or jumped on my friends trampolines. My dad wasn't too into anything outdoors either. I'm the eighth of ten children, so I think by the time I came around he had worn himself out. I vaguely remember him going hunting when I was really little. I don't remember if he came back with anything or not. He had some fishing gear but I never saw him use that. I didn't have any interest in either except for one time I brought his gear to scout camp and tried to fish once - I believe I got the hook stuck in some reeds and gave up. None of my brothers fished, nor did my friends. My point in saying all this is to point out how strange it was for me to get an interest in fishing while in college. I had a dream of hiking deep into the Sawtooth mountains in Idaho to do some hiking/climbing/mountaineering and living off the land for a week. Part of that meant fishing the remote streams for trout. I knew that fly fishing would be my favorite way to fish because it is so much more interactive. Despite this dream I never fished in all my time in Idaho. I realize now how incredibly sad it was that I never got into fly fishing up there. My first experience with fly fishing was at a pond in Colorado with some guys that I worked with after graduating college. They were big catfish guys, and had no idea how to use a fly rod - and neither did I. I had borrowed my dad's fly rod and it was a mess. Needless to say I didn't catch anything.

When I moved out to North Carolina, my curiosity for fly fishing grew. I started looking up information on it and decided that it was too expensive to start, but my interest grew with the increase of knowledge. When Janet and I got married, her parents moved out of town as well. They gave us a lot of stuff for our new house, including a spin-casting rod. Thus began my career as a crappy fisherman.