1980 – 1984

Hosmer Lake and a freshly planted land-locked Atlantic Salmon landed from one of the very first of two float tubes in Oregon waters circa 1979 (Glenn’s was the other). We both had this ‘Mountain Trader‘ float tube which utilized a big-rig ‘truck inner tube’ as the bladder, which was not included and you hunt one down from the local tire shop. It weighed at least twice as much at today’s float tubes, but never failed me during hundreds and hundreds of hours of use.
Cut my teeth on guiding and teaching fly fishing with my family and friends. Got braver and ran a handful of trips for a local shop, doing walk-n-wade trips, along with some float tube trips. Decided I needed a real career and gave it up to focus on College. The spring that I was finishing my undergraduate degree, Glenn invited me up to Portland, Oregon for the biggest annual sports show in PRI to meet some lodge owners that were interviewing for summer guide jobs. So instead of going after a masters program offered to me, I headed off to remote Western Alaska for the summer instead.