Were you interested in tattooing or painting first?
Tattooing was one of my first loves. Painting came much later.
Do you find a parallel between the two mediums?
Absolutely. I started getting more into American Traditional tattoos and started studying those designs. They were all hand painted with watercolor. Many tattooers started duplicating such designs in order to help preserve our history and tradition. I wanted to be a part of such a movement so I started painting.
When was your first experience with fly fishing?
I grew up fishing, but never fly fishing. I was actually in college doing research for a paper on religion for a sociology class and stumbled across an article on fly fishing as a natural religion. I had to read it. As it turned out, many of my own personal values and convictions coincided with the principles of the article. It made me think, rather romanticize more, about the notion of fly fishing. Eventually, my wife got sick of hearing me talk about it and told me to buy a rod and reel. So Dave Hostler (Pilecast) and myself visited the Bass Pro in Northern Indiana so I could get everything I needed to get started. An older gentleman by the name of vern took me out to their little pond and gave me a quick tutorial. I have been doing it ever since. I guess it has been about 5 years now and I am still a novice. Fly fishing is as humbling as tattooing.