 A few weeks ago, Emmie asked me what my favorite article that I've ever had published was. I didn't really have an answer until now. I first met Reed Morisky in 2015. I was a college kid keen on making a name for myself, and he was a fishing guide looking for someone to help him make a film about Arctic grayling. We arranged to meet for coffee -- I addressed him as Mr. Morisky then and ever since -- and next thing we knew, we had the makings for a short documentary. We had stars in our eyes for wide viewership, fly fishing sponsors, and lofty places in international film festivals.  Filming with the ol' Panasonic and an improvised boom pole (an alder branch) on one of Reed Morisky's favorite streams. Back on Earth, I barely knew what I was doing. My only camera was a Panasonic that shot on MiniDV tapes, I had to build a camera crane using an old tripod and a spruce pole, and my connections in the fly fishing world that could potentially lead to sponsorship were exactly none. And here we were competing for film festival slots against companies that shelled out fifty-grand for productions in the Seychelles.
The film did not garner the wide viewership that we'd shot for. It didn't get played on the international stage. I didn't feel that I was able -- truly able -- to do justice to Mr. Morisky's story... Yet. In 2017, I gave up on filmmaking. I realized that I loved telling stories but that the camera lens wasn't the way I wanted to tell them. I started writing my butt off instead. Writing terribly at first and then improving to writing badly. Still writing badly. I called Mr. Morisky in February of 2018 because I finally knew how to do justice to his story: I would write a biography not only about his pursuit of Arctic grayling, but about his life in Alaska. It would be a book to sit next to the stories of Frank Glaser, Ray Tremblay, Jim Rearden, Duncan Gilchrist -- the lodestars of the Last Frontier. It would be a modern take on the hunting and fishing tales that have lured so many people northward over the centuries. The interviews between Mr. Morisky and I began again; this time, dozens of hours' worth. We met in coffee shops, we sat at his kitchen table; he reminisced about the triumphs and the failures of his sporting life while I scribbled like hell to get it all down.  Reed Morisky's 171 6/8" Boone & Crockett Dall ram. At the time of harvest, this ram was the first to be entered from the Brooks Range of Alaska in over 12 years. Of all the yarns that I got to hear, Mr. Morisky's Boone & Crockett Dall sheep story has to take the cake for most absurd, most rollicking, and most incredible. It was so irresistible, in fact, that this was one of the first parts of the book that I actually wrote. Now, after several years of rewriting and overhauling, I am proud to say that you can find Reed Morisky's ram story -- "A Ram Tale For the Ages" -- in the Special Adventure issue of Sporting Classics, available at Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, Barnes & Noble, or online at sportingclassics.com. Now you, too, can be whisked into the far reaches of the Brooks Range.... So there you have it. My favorite article and my favorite story. It's about a man that I had the pleasure to meet back in 2015 and have had the even greater pleasure of getting to know over the past seven years. It's about the Dall sheep hunt of a lifetime. It's about a member of a dying breed, a true man for Alaska, a conservationist that still believes this great land has secrets to hide. Stay tuned for the book-length version.
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