"I got to fish with Flip once for a couple hours one morning…back when I worked in PR for The Nashville Network’s outdoor block.

We were in Florida filming a segment for a couple fishing shows and Flip came by to say hello to one of our guides who was featured in the show.

All the crews headed out on the water to fish/film and only me and Flip were left at the dock. “Hey, you want to take a boat ride?,” he asked me. “Sure, why not,” was my reply.

We roared off into some backwaters somewhere (I’m always lost in the Keys…always…literally and figuratively) when suddenly Flip slowed, then stopped the boat and pointed to what I now know are mangroves. “Snook” was all he said and grabbed a spinning rod and handed it to me. “Throw right at the base of those bushes and hang on,” he told me. “Reel it back slowly.”

I guess the fishing gods were looking down on me twice that day…once putting me in the boat with Flip (I knew who he was and couldn’t believe I was in a boat with him) and a second time to be actually fishing with him.

And, maybe a third time because four or five cranks of the rod and I was into a fish…or rather the fish was into me. Anyway, the fish got off. I was disappointed to say the least. Flip just smiled and said, “Check your line. Make sure he didn’t put a nick in it and cast about 20 feet to the right.”

Several casts later, another fish took pitty on me and I learned what it was like to fight a big snook (well big to me anyway).

Flip pulled an ancient camera out of a bag in the boat’s dry locker and snapped a couple of photos of me and the fish. He, like every good photographer of that era was using Kodachrome 64 slide film…the only film any magazine would accept.

We caught a couple more fish and Flip asked me if I knew how to use a flyrod…I admitted I often fished with one and had recently spent a few days on the water with his guide friend chasing tarpon and bonefish.

I threw some flies at snook for another 45 minutes and actually caught one or two…then, it was time for Flip to get me back to the dock…he had some business to attend to that afternoon and needed to get back.

At the dock I thanked him, gave him my TNN business card and asked if he would send me one of the slides.

He agreed and then I asked him what I owed him for the impromptu guide trip. “Absolutely nothing. I was looking for a good reason to see if the snook were back there anyway,” he said.

We said goodbye and I figured that was that. Turns out the film crews should have been with us…they didn’t catch enough to make much of a TV show.

A couple weeks later back in my office in Nashville, TN, I received a small package postmarked from Florida.

It was a couple slides of me and a couple of snook…and several hand-tied snook flies from Flip…a handwritten note was in the small box. ”Enjoyed meeting and fishing with you. Let’s do it again soon.” It was signed, “Flip”.

I wish now I had made an effort and fished with him again. I’m the poorer for not having done that.

That note, the slides and those flies are somewhere at my house, I think … haven’t seen them for a few years…maybe it’s time I dug them out of whatever keepsake box I put them in."

Tony Dolle