It's been a challenging year, but also a very good year in many respects.
Before we really knew what covid-19 was, I celebrated the beginning of 2020 fishing for trout on the White River with some close friends. It was an annual trip with Bill Eldridge of Benton, Rusty Pruitt of Bryant, Ed Kubler of Benton and Richard Phelan of Benton. The food, as always, was outstanding, as was the fellowship. The immortal memory of that trip is Kubler ordering pizzas from the Pizza Inn in Mountain Home, Idaho, instead of Arkansas.
"It happens all the time," an employee at the restaurant said as a bewildered Kubler tried to comprehend his error. We took an impromptu shopping trip for unneeded fishing tackle while the Mountain Home, Ark., Pizza Inn prepared our late supper.
The sports world shut down the morning after Arkansas beat Vanderbilt in the play-in round of the SEC basketball tournament in March. I was on Lake Ouachita trying to conjure up a fishing story when the bad news came down in a torrent. In the distance, I saw a guy fishing from a kayak, so I got out my long lens and began taking photos. Finally he summoned me over.
It was Stephen Dunlap, an Iraq War veteran who later acknowledged that he was very suspicious of somebody on the water photographing him. He wanted to know what the heck I was doing. Dunlap was fishing in a Kayak Bass Fishing League tournament. We fished together for several hours and struck up a friendship.
In May, Bill Eldridge, his father Bill Eldridge Sr., and his son Matthew Eldridge returned to the White River. Eldridge Jr. and I fished with Craig Yowell, a guide who taught us how to catch big brown trout with sculpins. I also caught a 22-inch rainbow trout, for which Cotter Trout Dock awarded me a commemorative pin and certificate for releasing the fish.
An indelible memory from that trip was when I was shooting photos and saw movement in the corner of my periphery. I swung around and snapped a photo of a bald eagle snatching a trout from the water. That night I also learned how good rib-eye steaks taste after marinating in Worcestershire sauce for a few hours.
My 2020 turkey season began in April with a controlled hunt at Cross Timbers Wildlife Management Area in Love County, Okla. After three days of hard scouting, I located a Rio Grande gobbler in the area's remote interior and killed it shortly after dawn on the first day of the hunt. It was my first triple-bearded gobbler, and its spurs were like stilettos.
My Arkansas turkey season was uneventful. I didn't hear a gobble or a yelp until Mike Stanley of Highland invited me to a special place in Marion County. On the next to last day of the season, I called a mature gobbler across a creek and under a fence to within 15 yards. He was a dandy, but the best part was sharing the experience with Stanley, a longtime mentor who has taught me a great amount about calling turkeys and turkey hunting tactics.
Summer's fishing trips were epic, though more for the human drama than for the fishing. People flocked to our state's rivers in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and a trip to the Buffalo National River was more entertaining than a day at the zoo.
One notable exception was a fishing trip on the Caddo River with Greg Ellis of Sherwood. That was a great fishing day. We caught big smallmouth bass, but we had to work for them. Ellis confided that he prayed for success because he didn't want to "star in one of those Bryan Hendricks classics where you don't catch any fish."
I declined two offers to hunt pheasants in South Dakota to minimize the risk of virus exposure to my elderly traveling companions, but I enjoyed some fine skeet shoots with Skip Henry, Jim Smith and Anthony Michaels.
I can't forget the great ducks I enjoyed with Bill Henry, Jim Rice, Jimmy Green, Matthew Green and others.
Deer season seemed slow, but I finally earned a Triple Trophy Award and bagged a trophy buck to boot. It was my pleasure and honor to share all these stories and more with you. I hope they helped brighten your year.
Probably the highlight of my year was writing my first book in 21 years, and my first novel. The working title is "St. Tom's Cathedral." I hope to be able to share that with you soon. It just seemed like this was a good year to do something a little extra. My motto going forward is, "Making trains out of train wrecks."
May 2021 be better for us all.