Earlier this week, a friend of mine called from Colorado to catch up, to see how I was recovering from a bout with the flu, and to discuss life, family and the outdoors.
While my voice didn’t want to cooperate too much, the conversation was a great one as Brian and I navigated the globe and held court on all things from A to Z. When work beckoned — he’s an insurance agent in the Colorado Springs area that will soon be relocating to Texas — and our phone conversation ended, I hung up and reflected on what had just happened. And when I did, I smiled big.
Because our friendship — and Brian is one of the best friends I’ve ever had — is something of chance, beginning earlier this century in a dusty farmhouse in New Mexico as the two of us chased pronghorn antelope with a bow.
After a few days of being in camp with owners John and Cary Crist, along with a group of bowhunters from California, the farmhouse emptied after lunch one afternoon and Strickland and I began to talk about bows, arrows, big game animals, whitetails, family, faith, and a whole lot more.
At some point in our discussion — the first of hundreds, if not thousands, that have taken place since that August afternoon in the early 2000s — Brian asked a question about how he could become an outdoor writer, something he thought he could do and a subject matter that had always intrigued him.
While I laughed and told him that when he had figured it all out to be sure and let me know, I really was interested in the answer too, for my own sake. Working for the now defunct ESPNOutdoors.com, I was in the early days of a so-called “career” shift that found me soon working for a variety of outdoor communication groups. That “career path” continues to unfold to this very day and I’m forever in awe — and thankful — that the Good Lord saw fit to turn my career pursuits down a trail that I never saw coming.
The irony of that conversation many years ago is that Brian does indeed possess a tremendous amount of writing talent, eventually becoming a back-page columnist for several magazines and writing numerous feature stories about bowhunts he’s taken all over the country and for every big game species imaginable. Today, he’s the Equipment Editor for Bowhunter magazine and I marvel at the abilities of a friend I was privileged to meet in a dusty farmhouse so long ago.
As I began reflecting on all of that and sorting it out — it’s Thanksgiving week, after all — it occurred to me that so many of the things I’m so grateful for today have come about the same way, in some sort of unexpected fashion. And it also occurred to me that while I got into the pastimes of hunting and fishing to do the obvious — to go hunting and fishing — that’s not what’s important today.
Instead, it’s the people that the outdoors have introduced me to along the way, friendships and relationships that remind me that my biggest blessings today don’t come from a taxidermist’s shop. Instead, they’re the people that have fueled my years of outdoors enjoyment, and it’s those relationships that I’m most grateful for on this day after Thanksgiving.
For starters, there’s my wife Charissa — not to mention our kids Katie, Zach, and Will — who had no idea what she was signing up for three decades ago when we met on a blind date. In the years since then as we’ve built a marriage and raised a family, she’s seen the shelves of her refrigerator filled with game and fish, seen her bank statements filled with expenditures for groups like Ducks Unlimited, and the walls of her home adorned with antlers, sporting art, photos, and other mementoes, the art of the modern cave man whose mind drifts towards time spent in the great outdoors.
If CB has had to raise me as an adult, then I’ve also got to be eternally grateful for a mom that started the process when I was a kid. That woman, my mom Phyllis, did her part to spur on my love of the outdoors, even if she didn’t always understand it. From birthday and Christmas gifts from Barrett’s Cut-Rate Drug Sporting Goods to coffee tables filled with dog eared copies of outdoor magazines to tolerating my early canine hunting companions like Smoky and Molly, my mom was — is, I should say —a driving force in who I’ve become today.
She even went above and beyond the call of duty, getting up early before I could drive, taking me to a nearby lake where I had permission to hunt, and waiting — sleeping — in the car as her son called in vain at ducks passing overhead at first light.
My late dad Bill also got the train rolling with a lot of fishing trips when I was a kiddo. My uncle Jake and my cousin Shawn helped ignite the pilot light with a long ago Thanksgiving weekend rabbit hunting trip in northeastern Oklahoma, something I’ve written about in this space before. And my cousin Rob Neal and his late dad Bill did their part, talking ducks and duck hunting when our families gathered for dinner.
Since my dad didn’t hunt, there were friends and mentors that nurtured my path forward in the outdoors on the hunting side of things, people like Gary Jacobs, Steve and Andy Rice, Mike Horn, the Moss brothers (Jackie and Troy), and my high school pals Mike Bardwell, the late Jeff Camp, and Johnny Tarver.
Somewhere along the way, I met my longtime friends Jim Lillis of Sherman, Orvie Cantrell, Jr. of Sherman, and Doug Rodgers of Whitesboro. These three gentlemen have continued my educational path forward in the outdoors world and have given me more than they’ll know. Over the past year or two, I’ve greatly enjoyed our gatherings at City Limits, even if we talk more about hunting than we collectively get out and do it these days. Add in Brock Benson, Dale Moses, and others, and conversations about the outdoors world are almost as enjoyable as actually being out there.
Hunting is one part of my life and career, while being a fly fisher is another. When I think back on that arena of life, I can easily focus on some of the great moments — a bull trout on a five-weight fly rod in British Columbia, a 15-pound silver salmon on a river in Alaska, a nice-sized blacktip shark in Florida, and a chunky East Texas largemouth bass.
But behind all of those memories are people, again. Tom Bean’s Scott Cox sold me my first fly rod and I haven’t recovered. Then there’s Rob Woodruff, my longtime best friend and a fly fishing guide who now lives in Arkansas with his wife Jenny, who has taught me much of what I know about the sport. There’s also my friend Steve Hollensed, a Tom Bean based Orvis fly guide for Texoma stripers and one of the co-founders of the Red River Fly Fishers. There’s my good friend Dr. David Coble, as fine a fly angler and fly tyer as there is. My old boss Jeff Phillips slips into the mix, as does Denison’s Charles Allen and some long ago rivers in the 49th state.
Even my two sons get into the mix here, finding their way into a deep love for fly fishing in recent months. Will even went fly fishing in the spring of 2021 while he was on his honeymoon in Montana and Zach kept me going this past spring with texts about his own fly fishing pursuits on Lake Texoma, the Blue River, the Lower Mountain Fork, and more.
Which leads me to this last outdoors thought on my annual trip down Memory Lane concerning what I’ve got to be thankful for on this day after Thanksgiving. It’s something I’ve done in annual fashion since beginning to write in this space back in the early 1990s (by the way, without the outdoors, I never would have met my good friend Jason Della Rosa, who edits this drivel every week), and I guess it’s time to keep the tradition alive one more time today.
This final morsel comes from a trip that took place on a cloudy, cool, October evening a few weeks ago after a rainstorm had doused the Texomaland region. Once the radar cleared, I found myself out on the big lake in the Skeeter bass boat of local businessman and angler extraordinaire Brett Graham.
We were chasing big blue catfish (more on that topic soon), an angling pursuit that Graham has been dialing in with some astonishing results over the past couple of years.
On this particular fall evening, when the light was fading away and memories of a couple of big catches on a slow afternoon were satisfying us, our conversation turned a bit as we began sharing and reminiscing about great times spent on the water.
But more importantly, we reminisced about great times spent on the water with great people. Brett is one of those great people, by the way, and I’m always appreciative when we get to spend time together on the water.
At some point, I looked across the still lake — there wasn’t another boat in sight — and started soaking it all in, including the time, the place, the big fish, and the experience.
But what mattered most in that twilight moment was a pleasant conversation with a good friend I enjoy hanging out with and talking a little fishing. It might have been the best outdoors moment of the year, in fact, for yours truly.
And on this day after Thanksgiving, as I look to polish off another piece of my wife’s pumpkin pie and start looking for the Christmas decorations, I’m reminded that once again, for all of its difficulties and challenges at times, a life spent in the outdoors can be a thing as big, grand, and beautiful as the state of Texas is.
Especially when it comes to the people — the family, the friends, and the acquaintances — who have made the past 12 months so memorable and enjoyable while I’ve gotten out and enjoyed the Creator’s grand outdoors canvas.
Because in the end, it’s the people who end up being the bigger blessings in life, far more important treasures than anything sporting feathers, fur or fins.
Credit: Source link
