The Green River, Daggett County » We had been on the river for less than 20 minutes and I already felt like royalty. Denny Breer was behind the oars and was thanking me -- yes, me -- for putting him there.

"You must have somebody pretty damn important in that boat to get you out on the water," one of the guides yelled across the Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam. "I haven't seen you on the water forever."

In typical Denny fashion, he replied, "Only as important as the last guys."

Since the unfortunate incident that took his life Nov. 6, I've been reflecting on the times I spent with Denny. I can't bring myself to believe that he won't be at Trout Creek Flies the next time I visit Dutch John, that I can't just pick up the phone and see if he has any rooms available for my last-second trip.

I'll remember the talks we had -- the official interviews for the paper and the personal ones angler to angler -- regarding various issues on the Green River: flows, New Zealand mudsnails, whirling disease and so on.

Denny, who owned Trout Creek, was the voice of reason when a group wanted to build a lodge across from the Little Hole takeout several years ago.

"This is a big dream for them. I understand, because I have dreams myself," he told me for a story. "But there is a right place for development, and a public river corridor is not the right place for private domain."

When I visited Denny this past spring, it was for something as far from the fishing world as you can get. One day a couple of years ago, Denny casually mentioned something about his racing pigeons. I was intrigued by the excitement I saw in his eyes for something other than trout and his beloved wife, Grace.

We talked a little about his birds and I tucked away the idea for a story down the road. I spent a week in Dutch John this spring and scheduled an afternoon to visit with Denny to see his "loft."

Denny apologized for the mess his loft was in, and I wondered how I would know the difference between a clean and a dirty pigeon coop. He pointed out champion racers and talked about the breeding he had achieved. His words became a blur as he talked passionately about how his discovery of a young pigeon on the ground under a tree when he was 5 sparked his interest in birds.

We watched his birds fly for half an hour. I finally realized the magnitude of his love for them when a hawk showed up and started eyeing the pigeons as lunch.

"Get outta here," he yelled, loud enough for the hawk and all of Dutch John to hear. "C'mon kids, back to the loft."

Again in typical Denny fashion, he deflected the story from himself to a buddy who had worked with pigeons in World War II.

But back to my royal day on the river. He had warned that I really should go with a guide who spent every day on the water because he hadn't been out for over a month.

I didn't care. This was one of those times when the fishing didn't matter -- I was just excited to soak up his knowledge of the famed river and relish the time I was spending with him.

And still, I stopped counting at two dozen.