Life has a way of creating circles and last summer Captain Kevin Morlock of Indigo Guide Service mentioned that he had fished this guy who had retired from the military and was traveling quite a bit, fly fishing along the way. Kevin figured that we'd get along.
Fast forward a few months and I came across Josh Franklin's artwork on Instagram. He and I traded DM's and he brought up fishing on Beaver Island. I was thinking, "I know this guy..."
Josh has been working on a "Three Flies" project for awhile and reached out to Indigo Guide Service on their three flies for Beaver Island. I asked Josh to document this piece of artwork step by step and he also sent along his story to enjoy as well.
Josh wrote... "As a kid, I drew nearly every day and dreamed of becoming a comic book artist. High school ended and I was awarded a full scholarship to an art school in Georgia. But the scholarship was only for the first year and I had no idea how I’d afford school after that, so I went to the Air Force recruiter. With every intention of serving only the four years necessary for the GI Bill, I headed off to Texas and basic training. Somewhere in those first few years, I fell in love with the military. Texas became Washington, then Germany, Nebraska, Alaska, Portugal, Afghanistan…and 21 years later I retired in New Mexico.
A year after I left the military, I picked up a sketchpad again. I’d found this new thing called fly fishing
and decided to do some portraits of people with fish. Also began an Instagram page at the same time to document the journey. I hadn’t drawn or sketched for 20 plus years, but it came back like I was riding a bike. From drawing the people with their fish, I learned so much about fish species and what amazing fishing locations there are in the world. From Colombia and Chile to Wyoming and Arkansas, opportunity
is everywhere.
But one thing continued to bug me a little bit about fly fishing. It was the gear thing. Some people
seemed to think that more and better gear was the solution to their fishing challenges. This sling pack,
this reel, this type of graphite, those waders…and the more flies the better. I thought about it this past
summer as I traveled a handful of states to fish. Why not ask some of the best anglers which few flies
they’d choose to fish their home waters if they had to use only those flies (make it three) for an entire
year?
So I did. I began to ask that question to guides, anglers, and fly shops. And the responses were
overwhelming. In November 2022, I began documenting their responses in my art. I use Sakura Micron pens (black and white) on toned paper to tell a story of their fishery and the three necessary flies. If I’ve fished with them, I lend a bit of personal experience to the narrative on Instagram. For example, Kevin Morlock with Indigo Guide Service (pictured here) fishes Beaver Island for carp in the mid-summer months. I fished with Kevin (he was the first fishing guide I ever used) and went head over heels for sight fishing for carp. And apart from the incredible fishing, you couldn’t find a better person to be on a boat with, as his knowledge and expertise of fishing (he guides in three areas) and life is without peer.
If you have a fishery (e.g., river, state, lake) that I haven’t covered in the series (@firefishingart), send a DM with your three fly choices for a year, their profile pictures if they are custom or hard to find, the
fishery/water, and a fly shop or fly designer if you like to include them. It’s free (as long as I keep the
project open) and I’d be happy to even send you the original art in exchange for a handful of flies."
What's your three flies on your local fishery? Let Josh know on Instagram and he just might make some art out of it.
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