Name: Don Nichols
FWFF member since (year): 2014
Fishing since: 1957 I’m 65 now.
Favorite place to fly fish: In my Memories.
The last place I fly fished: Lower Mountain Fork River
My dream fly fishing trip is: my next one
and with whom: my wife
Favorite fish to catch: that’s a tuff one. I have fished for so many different species and all have been hero’s to me. But if I had one to pick over all the others I guess it would be stalking small rainbows and brookies, or fly casting to smallmouth bass.
Best fly fishing memory: My last one
When I’m not fly fishing, I like to: Tie flies
The reason I like fly fishing is: It takes me to a place where God has intended me to be. Where all the universe blends into one and the confluence is being directed by me from the extension of His will through my fly rod. It is who I am.
Anything else you would like the club to know about you? I knew at a very young age that fishing is what I was going to do and a fisherman is what I would be. My life has been fishing. I was a guide for over 40 years. From guiding in the Rockies on the Frying Pan and Roaring Fork rivers of the western Rockies to migrating to Louisiana and running a Bass guide service on Toledo Bend Lake for 35 years. to guiding float trips for smallmouth bass on the Ouachita river in Arkansas. Guiding is all I have known. During lean times I had to pursue other avenues of employment, But the persistence of my client base and my deep rooted drive to fish has kept me wet most of my life. Now retired from guiding, I continue to mentor other younger guides leading them through the maze of obstacles they will encounter along their way. Speaking to organizations on what to expect when hiring a guide and what the responsibilities and etiquette are for both the client and guide.
I have become involved with REEL Recovery in the past year as I am a cancer survivor too, and look for an opportunity to show other participants the gift and magic of fly fishing. And that they too can find their way to the place where all pain and cancer is forgotten as they too let the water come and carry them away.
