In less than a week, I’ll be celebrating the 21st anniversary of my writing career with The Daily Herald, over 1,050 weekly columns. It has been an exciting, yet humbling experience to interact with so many of you, my loyal readers, who have followed my exploits for so many years. I want you to know how much I value each of you.
As the saying goes, “All good things have to come to an end” and the realization that “time waits for no one” will be my last column. No, I am not sick, I am enjoying life to the full. It’s just time to relax a little, hand over the baton, and not have the pressure to write a weekly column. Allow me to highlight a few memories from the past two decades.
“Give a person a fish and you will feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish and you will feed them for a lifetime. “
This saying means more than you can know about my feelings about fishing, teaching, and my 21 years of writing for the Herald.
My mission was and is to teach people how, where and when to fish.
My father taught me to fish when I was two and over the years I watched him give a “fisherman’s blessing” to most who shared his boat. He took off their tackle and tied better swivels, leaders, and hooks that would help them catch more fish. I have tried to pick up where my father left off and offered you my own brand of “fisherman’s blessing”.
I remember the first time I wrote about catching giant cutthroat on strawberries with five to six inch jerkbaits. So many of you wanted to try the tech that the area’s sports stores were almost sold out before the newspaper’s ink dried.
This has become problematic over the years. I often took calls from frustrated business leaders asking me to update them on the topics of the upcoming columns so they could stock up on supplies.
Then of course there were times when I would insult the people at the Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) for holding them accountable for some bad decisions. To be completely honest, I can’t remember many unless I go back and read my many diary entries. Stephen King wrote, “Time is the thief of memory,” and that is certainly true in my case.
Through all of this, I developed a great deal of respect for many DWR employees and other government officials, and forged remarkable relationships that I still hold dear to this day.
The most precious memories over the years have been the thousands of emails, phone calls, and personal questions, compliments, and fishing reports.
I enjoyed seeing photos of you, your kids, and grandchildren catching 30 pound lake trout, holding up stringer after stringer from stripers, windshield wipers, pikeperch, kokanees, rainbows, catfish, and crappies. I loved watching families catch white bass on the Provo River while taking photos for my column.
Most of all, I feel blessed to be able to share my deepest feelings about fishing as a sport, hobby and way of life.
I am indebted to you for allowing me to continue to write about my passion. Few people have the opportunity to admit the Herald and, of course, you as a reader. Many Thanks!
I still fish four or five days a week. Jeri and I now live just 10 minutes from two launch pads at Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Catching Kokanee salmon, lake trout, rainbows and my beloved black bass are still my passions. And so as not to stop the lifelong mission of teaching others, I have a simple YouTube channel teaching people how to catch more fish.
Thanks again for the memories and your continued support. You can still reach me at [email protected] or just add “Don Allphin YouTube” to your search bar.
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