play time

When I am working at McLellan's in Fayetteville when I'm not on the river, I get asked a lot, "been out fishing much?" After explaining that I have been out guiding quite a bit, they typically respond with something along the lines of, "man, it must be nice to be able to fish so much." Ha. Yea, ok. I love guiding. Most times, I enjoy it more than actually fishing, but to call guiding "fishing" is like calling a donkey a thoroughbred. Big stretch. It always seems that there is a list of folks I have made plans to go fishing with that continues to grow, and no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to wittle that list down. It just keeps growing.

I've been planning on fishing with Chance for over a year, and if I think hard about it, probably 2 years. Him and his buddies from the Chasing the Dream blog almost all live in Oklahoma, so they make trips of several days in duration over to the White and Norfork, as well as some surrounding rivers.​ I finally had a day where I wasn't guiding and he was going to be on the river. We grabbed breakfast that morning, scrambled our shuttle, and hit the water. 

​Chance with a solid brown

​Now, I like tossing streamers as much as the next guy, but I also know when it's just not in the cards. Bluebird skies, falling water, and a few caddis poppin' here and there. Well, we caught some pretty decent fish. Nothing to write grandma about, but some respectable browns in the 18"-20" range. I noticed Chris and Chance fumbled around all day with their GoPro camera, and come to find out, they made a video from our day of fishing. (I would have had my GoPro as well, but the good ol' generators at the lodge in Alaska last summer practically fried the battery).