A good day on the river

Larry Shackleford

Sometimes the sharpest people you know make dumb decisions. I’m talking about you, Dr. Steve Graves.

I’ve known Graves for the last 14 years, since joining his company part-time to do radio with Bo Mattingly. That relationship ended two years ago, but we still keep up with each other.

He’s sent me some nice texts after reading some of my fly fishing columns. I think this one is going to push that relationship a bit.

Graves is the brains behind Mattingly’s operation. That’s not me saying it, it’s Bo saying it.

Graves writes leadership books and coaches CEOs. If you are in a bind in business, he’s your guy. He travels the country to help leaders.

But he did a stupid thing last week. He invited Larry Shackleford on a fishing trip and bailed at the last minute. He thought flows were too big on the White River to make for fly fishing productivity.

Graves knows about ramping up productivity on the business scene, but shouldn’t be making decisions on what makes for a good trout bite. He blew the chance of a lifetime with elite guide Kristopher Bouldin.

Shackleford called me to sit in for Graves for a wonderful day with Bouldin on the oars. I’m biased on Bouldin because he married our daughter, Becca.

I’d love him like the son I never had even if he didn’t let me fish with him some days. But getting a day like I had with Shackleford last week doesn’t hurt.

It was incredible. I’m not stretching it. I was stunned. Never mind that it rained for the first hour. With the bite on fire, it was going to be hard to dampen our attitude.

Shackleford loves Bouldin, too. Bouldin is his go-to dude on a rare day off from work. And, work is especially tough these days.

Shackleford is CEO at Washington Regional Medical Center. You can guess what his life has been the last two months.

Getting one brief break from the stresses of running a mega hospital is a blessing. I was fortunate to enjoy it with him.

Larry and I enjoy each other on the river. We fish at about the same level and that's to say we could take advantage of the great conditions last week when Bouldin put us on fish over and over.

I’m writing this to thank both Steve and Larry for a magical day with 30 big brown trout and maybe another 80 rainbow, remarkable in those 20,000 cfs flows that scared away Graves. There was an iffy forecast that he cited, too, in his decision to bail.

I don’t really need to thank Graves. I did that for eight hours Friday every time we netted a brown trout. We took pictures – sometimes with two in the net – and texted them to Graves.

Here is a sample of the replies we got from Steve:

“You are killing me. How big? Just numbers? Are they all like that? I guess you are going to keep sending them, right? Wow. Nice. This is painful.”

No question, we over did it. Larry and I took turns taking pics of each other holding big brown trout, almost all over 20 inches. There was one of Larry and Kristopher behind a huge brown probably around 24 inches.

Near the end of the day I got a text from Mattingly, working in the next office from Steve. It was sweet confirmation.

Mattingly sent, “You know you are killing Graves, right?”

I like Steve, although he’s probably not sure right now.

Indeed, if you need someone to help you make important decisions, he’s the best person most of the time. I consider him a mentor, as does Bo.

Just don’t let him decide if it’s the right day to chase brown trout on the White River. His track record isn’t great.

It’s hard to book Kristopher Bouldin right now because it’s great fishing, so if you have a day with him, you dang better go. There are rain jackets for the bad weather and the brown trout sometimes bite better on a cloudy day.

If Graves didn’t know that before, he does now. It’s typically been good every April. I’m sure I told Graves that before, but he will remember going forward.

For the record, Graves is expecting this column. One of my texts after Kristopher had netted maybe 15 browns: “You know I’m going to write about this.” He replied, “I figured.”

I’m not mean spirited. I consider Steve a good friend.

He’s gone up a notch, too. Not only did he give me one of my best days ever on the river by staying home, he gave me something to write, too.