Community Member Spotlight
Kyle Hook
My favorite piece of content each month, is the community member spotlight. Our community is made up of fantastic human beings. Being in the fly shop, and being on our local waters allows me to connect with many of our community members. It’s fun to highlight members, and acknowledge them for being fantastic stewards of the game we play, and in life.
This months community member spotlight exemplifies stewardship and connection. He always has a joyful way about him, and willing to help out others on the water. I also love the fact that he is incredibly committed to his young family. His oldest daughter has had many trips to the shop, and she completely brightens up the shop, with her joyful spirit.
I am very pleased to introduce Kyle Hook as our January. Community Member Spotlight. Kyle is a gift to the world, and we are lucky to have him as a member of our community.
-Chris Rich, AZ Fly Shop Founder
What does fly fishing mean to you? What about fly fishing offers you most satisfaction?
Fly fishing means so many things to me and its easily my favorite thing to do. It means getting outside to enjoy life. Whether it’s the local canal, flats in Mexico, the backcountry wilderness, or putting around the lake with my family and a rod but never actually fishing. Whether it’s hanging out with friends on the water or enjoying the solitude that the sport can provide. It means continually learning and striving to improve my skills. The thing that gives me the most satisfaction about fly fishing is simply being out there. Recently I’ve been trying to expose my 4 year old to fishing and seeing her excitement to go fish with dad with just pure joy as well. Even though I usually just end up netting all her fish.
What does having AZ Fly Shop in the community mean to you? What do you like about AZ Fly Shop?
AZ Fly Shop means having a great local fly shop for the community to go to for whatever their fly fishing needs. Whether they’re an experienced angler looking for just about anything or someone that has never fished before looking to get started. Since I’m beginning to expose my 4 year old daughter to the sport I like being able to take her in to the shop and the employees’ excitement about helping me do that.
Tell us your most memorable fly fishing story
It’s really hard to pinpoint just one. I’ve been lucky to have a lot of great experiences with awesome people in beautiful places. But my “most memorable” experience was last July, fishing the Colorado River outside Glenwood Springs, CO. I was fishing with a guide who mentioned a stretch of the river that was known to hold less fish but opportunities to catch 20″ + trout on dry flies and was starting to fish well. Since my wife and I had just had a great day catching plenty of good size trout, I went with the guide’s intuition and decided to go for it. Well, after 6 or so hours of fishing and what seemed like 1000 cast, we hadn’t seen a single fish over 10″. Spirits weren’t the highest (mine anyway). Then it happened, I made a cast into a shallow rifle, what looked like a very large rock turned towards my fly and a massive head breached the surface and engulfed my fly in what seemed like slow motion. Just like the movies. Then it was just pure chaos. The guide trying to keep us safe in a big river with high flows while I’m fighting one of the biggest trout of my life on a 5wt with nowhere to really pull over safely. It was just intense. After what felt like the fight of my life we finally net
the fish while ripping down the river and find a place we could get to the side of the river safely. After taking pictures we released the fish and just sat there in silence for a good 5 minutes wearing grins from ear to ear, letting go the occasional “wow” and other explicit language. We finally felt like we could relax and ate some good ol store bought fried chicken for lunch just trying to process the previous events. After that we managed 3 or 4 more good fish and got hit by a monsoon that caused us to seek riverside shelter. Just a crazy day that plays over and over in my mind.
the fish while ripping down the river and find a place we could get to the side of the river safely. After taking pictures we released the fish and just sat there in silence for a good 5 minutes wearing grins from ear to ear, letting go the occasional “wow” and other explicit language. We finally felt like we could relax and ate some good ol store bought fried chicken for lunch just trying to process the previous events. After that we managed 3 or 4 more good fish and got hit by a monsoon that caused us to seek riverside shelter. Just a crazy day that plays over and over in my mind.
Is there any advice you would share with the fly fishing community?
Relax, it’s just fishing.
Is there anything else you would like to share with the community?
For a good time, eat tacos and go fly fishing!!
