Hello. I am a husband, father, son, brother, fly fisherman. I grew up in Bellevue, Washington, with a love of writing, art, the outdoors, and airplanes. My father taught me “which way the stick floats” on rivers and in the mountains of Montana. I learned to read a river on a spinning rig and Pepsi can filled with grasshoppers trapped by a stick. The summers of my youth were spent on a cattle ranch in Montana, bailing hay and fixing fence during the day. In the evenings, we would swim and catch trout in the Stillwater River, beneath the Absaroka Mountains.
When I turned eighteen, my mother cried, and I walked onto an airplane bound for Colorado Springs, Colorado, the United States Air Force Academy, and a great adventure. I traded my love of writing and art for science, and the pursuit of my childhood dream to fly fighter jets. In school I found fly fishing, my best friends, my calling, and my wife. For the next 20 years I traveled the world, flying airplanes, moving from place to place…fighting the war.
Ahead of me was the dream I had as a child. Behind me were the memories of walking the river and wading out into the current, searching for a fish. I touched that place from time to time. A trip to a stream while on leave. A rising cutthroat, and a tight fly line. Reminding me it was always there. Waiting for me to come back. Back to the writing, and the art. Back to the river.
After fourteen years of flying A-10 Warthogs in the USAF, I lived my dream to fly. Now, I live with my wife and son, beneath the mountains of Northern Utah. I look at my son, and I know I want to teach him what I was taught. I want to give him the full heart that beats when you are connected to the river and the fish beneath. I want to share that place with him and the people that seek it at Wadeoutthere.
My art is meant to tell a story that connects people with their own special fly fishing memories. A loved one. A friend. A beautiful fish in hand. A stillness found wading through the river. I want to recreate these precious emotions and experiences for people and remind them – you can go back. This art and these stories are the beginning of my journey back to that place that I left many years ago. I hope you enjoy sharing it with me.
GO. LEARN. TEACH.
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