Meet David Willis. David is the first river guide I want to highlight in this adventure, which will be starting oh so soon. At the recent Colorado Association of Libraries (CAL) conference in Keystone, CO, David participated in CAL’s silent auction by offering one lucky person a full day guided trip on a river along with a number of other goodies like John Gierach’s Trout Bum. All proceeds from the auction go to CAL’s scholarship fund. There was no way I was going to be outbid for this amazing opportunity especially because David is as passionate about fishing as I am plus he works with librarians in his connection with Emporia State and their MLIS program. Librarians and fishing… who ever knew?
David’s home waters are the Yampa near Steamboat Springs and we have a date when I pull in that part of Colorado in early April. It’s an interesting time of the year – early April. As David says, “The Yampa is usually awesome that time of year. It’s usually still before runoff truly begins, but it’s warming up, the days are longer, the rainbows are spawning up soda creek and fish creek, and the bite is on after a long winter.” David has a website of his own at spinnerfallanglers.com with some great photos – some of which I borrowed for 52Rivers.
