The first of the couple’ s daughters – Brenda, Linda, Rhonda and Donna – were keeping Nina busy back home, but she and they moved to Kansas City in 1954. The family remained until they were able to pay off their bills. Homesick, they returned to northwest Arkansas where they set up a guiding business to take advantage of the newly finished Bull Shoals Lake’ s growing popularity. Forrest became so busy guiding he had to give up one of his other enterprises: home builder and general contractor.
Trout stocked in the lake’ s cold tail waters thrived. That created more guiding opportunities for the Woods, who built a two-story dock downstream of the dam on the northwest bank of the river where Nina and her girls managed a growing number of guides and customers.
The White River shoals were hard on the wooden johnboats that the guides used. A practical man, Forrest got the idea of putting fiberglass mats on the bottoms of the boats to protect them. Forrest had a lot of fishing-friendly ideas about boats. A while later he decided to make his own fiberglass boats in the back of a filling station. In
1968, he built a half-dozen 16-foot boats, rated for 50-hp outboards. On the back corners of each boat, the name“ Ranger” was stenciled in paint( last fall what was billed as the first Ranger ever made was towed in the 72nd annual Turkey Trot festival parade in Yellville, the county seat of Marion County).
In 1969, after Forrest started making the rounds at various tournaments and anglers had a chance to look over his boats, the operation was moved into a closed nightclub, and 600 more Rangers were built to fulfill orders. In 1970, production doubled. Then came the Big Fire of 1971, when the plant burned down and the Woods and their employees had to start all over. There followed a few restart bumps, but Forrest and Nina never considered that they would do anything except get the company up and running again.
“ That was a bad time, but the late’ 70s were really bad, too. Interest rates got so high that a lot of people stopped buying some things for a while – including boats,” notes Forrest.“ It slowed down our business quite a bit, and we just had to make the best of it like everybody else. But we and the country gradually worked through it, too.”
The Fruit of Their Labor Is More Labor
Somebody mindful of Forrest and Nina’ s busy routine once asked Forrest when they rested.
“ When we go to sleep at night,” he answered offhandedly.
That’ s only a slight exaggeration. Cattle ranching and haymaking in the hills and dales along the White River take up most of their time, though Nina breaks away once in a while to participate in her favorite sport: bowling. There’ s also the curtain call of the Ranger legacy to deal with, even though Forrest and Nina aren’ t directly linked to the company anymore. In the minds of most fishermen, however, they’ re the walking, talking embodiment of Ranger, and always will be. The connection still keeps them busy with various projects, such as putting in special appearances at FLW events, attending promotions for high school and college tournaments, and generally being Forrest and Nina Wood to an admiring public.
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