In February of 2016 I received a phone call from my best friend Chris Shipp. At the time I was living in Las Vegas, Nevada, and he was living in Texarkana, Arkansas. He mentioned the idea of us having a fish camp for kids. I thought it was a great idea, but at that moment in time I had been working six months on launching a new business, and could not commit to a new joint venture. About a month later, one of the key components to the business I was about to launch fell through, and I was at a stand still. Blind sided by uncertainty and what’s next for my future. The phone rings again. Guess who? My best friend again mentioning taking kids fishing. At this moment in time I thought he was crazy. I’m thinking to myself I just left my Corporate America job 8 months ago to work for 6 months with no pay preparing to launch a new business, and now I have no clue what direction I need to go, and my best friend wants me to start a new fishing business when I live in the middle of the desert. So as you can probably imagine I passed on the idea again. In June of 2016 I was at the end of the ropes. I was mentally drained on trying to figure out what direction to go for my future, and considering throwing in the towel of pursuing my own dreams. I was just going to go back to work for some company, and give up on the American Dream and pursuit of happiness. Ring! Ring! Ring! Third times a charm. My best friend calls again, and we begin to talk about everything going on in our lives, and he mentions fish camps for kids, YouTube Fishing Channels, etc. So I told him, “Let me do a little research and I will get back with you.” So the first thing I look up is fish camps for kids. I ran across several camps with websites in different parts of the country. They were pretty simple, three to five day camps, different fishing activities & education during the camp, and all had a hefty price to attend. The most insane thing was they were fully booked up. I thought to myself maybe my friend is on to something. Next I looked up fishing YouTube Channels. He mentioned different channels to me, and different videos, so I watched them, and I was like we could have fish camps, and our own Fishing YouTube Channel to make it a little more exciting. Last I ran across a news article speaking about the fishing industry as a 43 billion dollar a year industry, and growing. So I talked to my friend again and I said to him,”Let me start working on it, and see what I can come up with.” That is the very beginning of the Pond Hopper Nation Story.
