Slinging Bugs and Whipping Fish: A Family of Fly Fishermen

Andy Johnson after catching a giant rainbow trout in Woody Creek, Colorado. Johnson is a former professional fishing guide and an expert fly fisherman.

Andy Johnson has been many things in his life. He’s a successful community banker in Northeast Mississippi. He is a husband. He is a proud father of two. But it’s safe to say that his mind often wanders to the rivers and streams of the American West and the sight of trout leaping from the water, a dry fly floating in the air on the end of a line.

His parents, Sammy and Becky Johnson, share his son’s passion for the sport that is as much art as it is science - fly fishing.

While he is currently the Chairman, CEO, and CFO of the Bank of Vernon, Andy Johnson was a professional fishing guide in Colorado during his 20’s. He has fished and explored all over the Centennial State, as well as Utah and Wyoming.

Johnson grew up in Northwest Alabama in the town of Vernon. Growing up his father, Sammy, and he would spend days hunting for birds and squirrels and fishing for bass and bream and catfish.

“But it was all reel, and some cane pole, fishing,” said Johnson. “Fly fishing didn’t come until later.”

After graduating from high school, Johnson attended Bevill State Community College in Fayette, Alabama on a baseball scholarship. An elbow and shoulder injury limited his baseball career after he transferred to the University of Alabama.

“I stopped playing baseball and was able to make a group of new friends while in Tuscaloosa,” he said. “Several of them spent summers working in the West and I decided to go with one to work in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Near the end of the summer I was able to go on a floating trip with Klay Mangis. He was a local fishing guide who was taking the day to take a new guide Tony out for a float and invited me to go with them. We went to the Hoback River, which flows into the Snake River near the Canyon. It was one of those perfect days. We were fishing just ahead of a rain storm that was going to create a lot of mud in the river. Every time we dropped a line we hooked a fish. Eventually, Klay told me to put my rod and reel away and handed me a fly rod. ‘I’m going to teach you how to fly fish,’ he said to me. I’ve been hooked ever since. I have a hard time doing any other kind of fishing.”

During that summer, Johnson went on a camping trip to Aspen, Colorado and met a fly shop manager and guide working for Aspen Outfitting Company. He offered to make Johnson an apprentice fishing guide the following summer.

“I immediately accepted his offer, but keep in mind that in the mid 90’s we didn’t have cell phones,” said Johnson. “You had to plan in advance and if something changed you didn’t really know immediately.”

The following summer, Johnson packed his bags and made the long journey from Alabama to Aspen. When he arrived, excited to begin work as a guide, he discovered that the man who offered him the job no longer worked at Aspen Outfitters and the owner did not have the time to train a new guide.

“The owner of Aspen Outfitters was a guy named Jon Hollinger. He told me he had to run the shop and handle his primary interest of custom shotgun fittings. I immediately blurted out, ‘Well, you know I’m a business major and I can run the shop for you.’ He looked at me and said, ‘When can you start?”

Aspen Outfitters in St. Regis Hotel in Aspen, Colorado. Johnson ran this shop as he was training to become an outfitter.

Johnson, still in college, began running the Aspen Outfitters shop, selling guns, fishing equipment and other gear to tourists and guests of the hotel in which the shop was located. Only a week after starting, however, he got his big break.

“Jon told me that if we were ever shorthanded I might be able to go out with a group and learn the ropes of guiding,” he said. “A week after I started working in the shop we had a group of about 30 people who had booked a fishing trip. For some reason, about five of our guides called in sick that day. I had only been there a week, I hadn’t had a chance to do any fishing since I got there, and I had only fished that area a handful of times in the past. Jon asked me to go out as a guide anyway. It was cold and miserable that day, but of the 30 people in the group, the only two who landed trout were my people. After that, Hollinger said, ‘If you can wing that, you are good to go.”

So Johnson continued to run the shop, but he was also regularly tasked with acting as a fly fishing guide and clay shooting instructor for customers. He worked with Aspen Outfitting throughout the remainder of his undergraduate and graduate college years.

Many thought Johnson would make a permanent move out west when he finished school, but as much as he loved what he was doing, something he noticed troubled him.

“A lot of those older guides were generally miserable at work,” said Johnson. “You could tell they weren’t into teaching clients-who generally had never fished before, they hated coming to work, and something they started because they loved it was making them miserable. I never wanted it to be like that.”

So Johnson returned home to Alabama to join the family banking business. A decision, he says, he does not regret.

“My goal was always to have good experiences,” he said. “I wanted to learn the rivers, I wanted to meet people, I wanted to learn where to go and what to do. And I was successful. Fly fishing is something I want to enjoy for the rest of my life.”

Like Son Like Father

Sammy Johnson, Andy Johnson’s father, fly fishing.

While Andy Johnson was working to become a professional guide, his father, Sammy, was also falling in love with fly fishing.

Banking occasionally provided opportunities to travel to places like Jackson Hole and Aspen, where one day, about 25 years ago, he hired a guide to take him fly fishing. He’s been doing it ever since.

“I love being outside,” said the senior Johnson. “I like the challenge of making a cast and seeing a fish rise and making a presentation to him. I like the challenge of making the strike and getting him in the net. You really have to concentrate. It’s a bit more than dropping a line in the water.”

The two Johnson men often make trips to Colorado, where they share their passion for the sport.

“We often go to Colorado, but we’ve been all over,” he said. “Different spots are better for fishing for different fish. In Wyoming cut-throats are the dominant species. In Montana, you might find brown trout. In Colorado you have brown trout and rainbows and cut-throats and white fish. The rainbows are beautiful when they are jumping out of the water. The brown trout are savage. They pull down hard when they hit.”