My fondest memories as a child are with a fishing pole in my hand, so it was natural to be attracted to a man that fished for a living. In fact, I was so confident that he was my guy that we were married six weeks after our first date. How in the world can a woman go wrong when the man has a warehouse of fishing gear and a new boat every year in the garage?

Time passes and my fishing guide and I have been married for quite a while. I quickly figured out that there is more to being a fishing guide than just taking out clients for eight hours in the boat or on the ice. There is hours of prep work required before each trip, maintenance on equipment, marketing, articles, videos and the list just goes on and on. Besides all the extra curricular activities that goes along with the guiding business, there are coats, sweatshirts, wool socks, boots, gloves, hats and others too numerous to list lying about our home. I constantly find myself tripping or stepping over it all. Then there is the odor emanating from those objects that I distastefully call “Dead Fish” and my husband affectionately calls “The Smell of Success”. If the aroma in our house really is “The Smell of Success” we should be living in a mansion!

Our “mansion” is situated next to a large reservoir containing trophy fish for which my favorite fishing guide is renowned. Needless to say, he spends a large portion of his time on the lake both for business or recreationally. When he’s not fishing with clients he is enjoying time with his friends on the water under the guise of locating or experimenting on different techniques for catching fish. Then there is the amount of time spent in the shop/man cave making lead heads, respooling reels, reorganizing tackle that even Bass Pro would be jealous of, maintaining inventory or just on the phone talking about fish. Fish, Fish, Friggin’ FISH!

My passion for fishing has receded just a bit. Do not get me wrong…there is nothing more relaxing than sitting on a boat with a rod in one hand and a beer in the other on a picture perfect sunny day, but seven days a week in every adverse weather situation possible in Colorado is just not my idea of fun; my husband, on the other hand, the nastier the weather the better the bite. His passion for fishing is a full blown love affair! My angler summed it up once, rather succinctly, that fishing magazines are his porn. Need I say more?!

Leesa Keefe is married to Bernie Keefe, the Sky-Hi News’ fishing columnist and Middle Park fishing guide.