I frequently write about how clients become friends and some of those are really family members. Ron Ligon was one of the latter; fishing with me many times over the years and through all of that bringing his children, friends and eventually grandchildren to spend time on the water with me. His home town was one of the stops on our family cross country trip in the fall of 1998 and a great memory for all of us.
Nearly forty years ago I was working as a grouse hunting guide at a small lodge near here. At that operation the clients hunted in pairs and spent one day with each guide. During one of those hunts I met Ron Ligon, if I remember correctly on a very wet rainy day. Shooting grouse and woodcock is a challenge on a nice fall day and even more so in the pouring rain but we hung in there. I do not remember if we even managed to shoot a bird that day, but a lifelong friendship began.
Ron had hunted and fished extensively with other guides over the years, but we quickly became fast friends and in some ways one of my mentors. Ron had worked with a few guides, and I believe guided some himself for a short time. He had a perspective from both sides.
I learned about clear pricing, not to be ashamed of what I charged, that people mostly travel in their own time zones and most importantly that guiding is not about the success in hunting and fishing but rather the memories created in special places. To that point, when I returned to Maine Outdoors after a four-year appointment to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, I called many of my past clients to catch up. We talked for over an hour, and not once did we talk about the fish he had caught or the birds shot; rather the wildlife we had seen together over the years.
As you might expect I have lots of stories about our times together as he did. I tried to look back and count our times together but alas my paper tracking system in those early days did not make that information readily available.
One of my favorites was in the early 90’s and we were striper fishing on the Saint George, fishing was excellent in those years. We had landed many fish already that morning and I was making a quick drift before serving lunch on a gravel beach nearby. As I started the drift Ron cast into the clear water and maybe a dozen small stripers darted out after the fly. I was anticipating a quick hook up and watching closely. In a flash all of the small stripers disappeared and a few seconds later what looked like a submarine slowly rose and started to follow the fly. As we watched the submarine opened it’s mouth and sucked in the fly. In a second he was tight to what we all knew was a huge fish. The loose line disappeared from the deck without a snarl and Ron had the fish on the reel. The rod was bent way over and the drag seemed to be doing it’s job, for a minute; when suddenly the fish was not pulling. The line was slack. On inspection the leader had simply parted. But we all knew what a trophy he had on.
My other story is that on two consecutive June striper trips with his son we nearly lost a fly rod. As striper will sometimes do they had a school of bait chased to the surface of Thomaston Harbor not big fish but the action was fast and furious. At some point one of them caught a nice striper and rods were put down so pictures could be taken. The rod without a fish was simply laid down for the photo op with the fly still overboard. In the middle of the blitzing stripers. As you might expect the fly looked good enough to be eaten and it was! Both times I had to step quickly to keep the second rod from going for an unexpected swim.
Needless to say I will miss him like the member of the family he became.
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