Meet Your Captain…

Intense, with a nutty, laid back style… No it’s not a description of your favorite Burgundy, it best describes Capt. Todd’s approach that pairs so well with the very nature of sight fishing in the fishy paradise of the Cape Fear backcountry. “An unimaginable blessing” is how he refers to his last 7 years guiding full time on the Cape Fear Coast and the people he has gotten to share the experience with.

    It started at an early age, spending summers chasing Lake Trout and Salmon on Lake Superior’s Isle Royal National Park with his Grandfather. The fun soon morphed into an obsession that filled his consciousness to a point that almost nothing else existed when he was finally able to convince an apparently blind Redfish into taking a horrible excuse for a Clouser that he had tied on a clamp on vise his Grandfather had provided at the pleading of his parents to give him something to keep him occupied one cold winter.

   Enter Flip Pallot: “Any hopes I had that I would ever mature into a normal working adult were dashed when I turned on the TV to find Walker’s Cay Chronicles. I mean, here was a guy that gave up a lucrative career as a banker to go play in the Everglades, and they put him on television! I instantly knew what I wanted to do with my life, and it scared my parents to death. Maturity caught up with me though, and after college came a marriage to both my soulmate Lynn, and a law enforcement career.  One night a few years after being appointed to  the county drug interdiction task force, I found myself in an interstate median, sitting in a Crown Vic that reeked of seized marijuana and body odor waiting for a “certain” car to roll by like I had done most every night over the last 2 years, and it hit me… This must have been what Flip felt like during his banking years. No freedom, trapped in a never ending cycle, no fresh breezes on an incoming tide, no joy. The next day I entered the Sheriff’s office, resignation in hand wondering if I had lost my mind. I spent the next 2 years at Tarheel Fish and Game  with my boss and mentor Tom Morketter fueling my dreams to start guiding our fly shop customers part time, knowing all too well that once the bug bit, I would more than likely leave. He still encouraged me though, and more than tolerated my absences on fishing days. And sure enough, after calling all my friends and former customers to let them know I was going full time, I was gone. As much as he didn’t want me to leave, I know Tom prayed that I would find success and moreover happiness, and I am eternally grateful to that man for all he had done for me in such a short period of time. I realized through that relationship, that it was him I wanted to be like, not Flip. I wanted to be the person that worked to make others dreams possible and guiding fit right in.”

 “It’s been a crazy 7 years,  and only God’s love and my family’s sacrifice has made it possible. I would not dream of wasting the opportunity I have been given to make a living sharing my passion with you. Rest assured I will work as hard as possible to provide you with the angling experience you deserve, encouraging you, instructing when necessary, and right there beside you celebrating your successes! Thanks for visiting, and I can’t wait to fish with you…

 

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