OFF All-Day Meeting - April 2, 2022
Guest Speaker: Danny Barker "My Fishing Life"
Mark your calendars for OFF's first in-person meeting in quite some time. The Board is working hard to return our Club to a state closer to normal, and we appreciate all of your cooperation and patience. Additional details and precautions will be provided as we approach the event date.
On April 2, 2022, Ozark Fly Fishers will host their next all-day meeting with fly fishing guide Danny Barker from Mountain Home, Arkansas. He will talk about his life as a fisherman and trout fishing guide. Danny has probably fished and guided longer than most of us. He has many stories and exciting tales, tall and otherwise! An exciting and entertaining day is ahead.
Danny started angling for brook trout at a very young age in the Appalachian Mountain Region of West Virginia and Virginia. His mother and dad taught him to catch fish on a fly rod, spinning and baitcasting equipment. After a forty-hour workweek, fishing became the most critical activity in their family life. They fished for trout, smallmouth, and largemouth bass using artificial lures and flies only; no live bait of any type was allowed. After moving to the East Coast of Virginia, they did some saltwater fishing in the Chesapeake Bay and off-shore fishing off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. They fished the Atlantic Intercoastal waterway in Virginia and North Carolina for northern largemouth bass. I was fortunate enough to fish one of the best if not the best bass fishery’s in the world during the sixties and seventies.
Danny retired after working for forty-one years as a tool and die maker with Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. He and his wife Lena moved to Mountain Home, Arkansas, and he became a trout fishing guide in 2008. Danny enjoys guiding and teaching people to catch trout using ultra-light spinning gear and light-action fly-fishing gear with artificial lures or flies. He is grateful to his parents for giving him such a good education in fishing and catching technics. He enjoys teaching and sharing his knowledge with others about the sport he loves so much.
After Danny talks about his fishing life, he will talk about fishing Missouri’s state parks and the Rainbow Trout Ranch In Rockbridge, Missouri. He will cover the tailwaters of the White and Norfork Rivers in North Central Arkansas. Danny is a big nymph fisherman, so he will be prepared to talk about the type of flies and techniques he uses to catch trout, especially in high water conditions. He will demonstrate his tying techniques at the vise by tying some of his world-famous flies he uses to catch many trout on the White and Norfork Rivers. Be prepared and ready to ask Danny questions about anything related to fly fishing.