Backstory: I was sitting on a riverbank on the South Island of New Zealand with a fly-fishing guide. We were eating lunch and I was telling him about my life back in Korea. I told him I wrote a few stories about fishing in Korea that got a lot of feedback. Lots of emails from people wanting to know where to go, what to use and if they could hire a fishing guide.

He sipped on his beer and after a moment he said, “Well fookin’ ‘ell, mate. You ought to become a fly fishing guide in Korea.”

Check out the rest of the story in this photo essay at Field & Stream. Click the title below to read it.

The cocker spaniel in the the photo is Blitz, who sometimes accompanied me on fishing trips. He flushed hundreds of Korean pheasants during his short life and also a few in the Sand Hills of Nebraska when I flew him over for a hunt. He is buried on a mountain outside of Changwon.