When I meet someone for the first time and ask me what I do, I still kind of have imposter syndrome. It just sounds kind of uppity to me when I say, “Oh, I’m an artist.” I’m Paul Puckett. I’m a musician, luthier, I’m a sporting artist, fly fisherman, drawer of swords. And then there’s probably a bunch of other stuff that I’m half-ass good at that I probably shouldn’t even be listing.

I grew up in Dallas, right in the middle of the city. And when I was a kid, I would stay in Tyler, Texas with my grandparents where my parents were from. One granddad just took me fishing all the time, anytime I wanted. The other granddad was kind of a cowboy figure, worked in the oil fields. And he was the one that when I was 13 said, “Boy, you’re driving today.” He put me in the pickup truck seat and he had me driving to the city. When I told my parents that, they couldn’t believe it, but that’s just what granddads did. They believed in you.

I got into fly fishing after I’d kind of like conventional fish my whole life. My granddad was going to teach me how to fly fish and he passed away before he could. Fished on Lake Taneycomo with his fly rod for the first time. I mean, I couldn’t even cast 15 ft, 20 ft. There were these rising trout out there and it was so aggravating cuz I couldn’t just get it 10 more feet. And from that day, I just knew I was going to learn this and figure this out.
My first normal job, funny enough, was working at a store called Fishing World. I’d go there during the weekday and stock. And then they opened a fly fishing store in Dallas. And that’s the shop that really got me catapulted into doing commission projects. Some of our customers in the store would have me paint their fish. The first thing I ever did was if you caught a 24-in trout and you have a photo of it, I would paint it 24 in and paint it just like the photo. I was like, man, this is — I can paint a fish, something I love painting and they’re handing me 2 or 3 hundred bucks for it, you know? So, that’s when it kind of hit the next level. It went from like dreaming about it to actually doing it.

The true love of the outdoors for me kicked in when I was in college. I went to school up in Denton, Texas. I’d go fish the Brazos River below Possum Kingdom Lake and also down below Lake Whitney down around Waco. And I would just have these kind of one-day trips where I’d do that by myself. You learn so much from that experience. You hear things you’ve never heard before. I think that’s when I fell in love with it in a little bit different way than going with my parents, grandparents, and friends.

I decided, after I graduated college finally, that I would move to Wyoming and be a fish bum. So, I got a job where I got to work 4 days in the shop, have 3 days off to go wherever I wanted to within a couple hundred miles out west. It was paradise. It was 4 years of paradise. I caught thousands of fish. And I can sit here and say I don’t have to catch another fish for the rest of my life because I have as much fun in just the preparation for it. What needs to happen to be successful and as long as I get all those things right, if I catch a fish or not catch a fish, it’s not going to change my day a whole lot.
There’s enjoyment for me when a fish beats you. Like when a fish does not eat your fly, when you did everything perfectly, whether it’s a redfish or a tarpon. You can walk away going, man, that fish deserved to win, you know? They’ve got to win every now and then. And I don’t mind living with that. That’s part of the fun.

My dad was a musician. He was an amazing guitar player. He was a teacher, but he played a lot of part-time gigs. I went and bought a guitar and learned how to play it. Then I’d be able to play with my dad. And I love that camaraderie of playing music together.
I’ve got a guitar problem. A couple years ago, I bought one of these kits that kind of has everything ready to rock. I did about two or three of those and then I started thinking, maybe I’ll make my own body. Now, it’s something I do because I want to get better at it. The fact that I can just come out here when I’m out of the studio and feel like I’m doing something productive. The crazy thing is that someone can take this and they can make something from something I’ve already made — that’s just a neat feeling to know that that’s possible.

When you’re in the outdoors with other people that get it, I can be with someone that’s one of my best friends that normally we’re talking like crazy, but there might be 15 minutes where we haven’t even said a word because we’re both so locked in to what’s happening. We’re talking, but we’re talking to nature and nature’s talking to us, so there’s no conversation needed. I don’t think you realize how special it is until you get off that boat and you kind of look back and reflect.

These sketchbooks — I’ve got five of them that just kind of chronicles in a timeline everything, everywhere I’ve gone fishing in the last 8 to 9 years. It’s something I probably want to do every 5 years or maybe every 10 years. So, I’m working on that right now, compiling these and publishing a book. Every fishing trip I go on now, I try to write some sort of memory or thought or idea and then draw something from what happened that week. And the cool thing about this is I cannot remember anything about what happened on April 8th, 2020, but once I start reading this, it all comes back to me.
I think what keeps me passionate about fishing is probably where I live here in Charleston. There’s so many moments that can inspire you living here and being on the water. Every day is so different. The sun, the weather, the tides, the current — nothing’s easy here. This marsh, there’s just thousands of little secrets out there. So, I know that every time I go out there, I’m going to see something new. And there’s sometimes where I’ll go out and not even catch a fish and the weather’s crappy and everything goes wrong, but man, I come back to that boat ramp totally recharged and totally excited for the next day.
My painting the way I do it now is pretty methodical. I do some pretty technical stuff because when it comes to the world of sporting art, I don’t want to let the water down if that makes sense. I don’t want to let nature down. I don’t want to let the viewer down. I want to get it right. Authenticity and attention to detail in what I do — people are so passionate, and if you have just a little thing off or wrong and it’s clear that you haven’t been there doing what you’re painting, people can tell that. It’s one thing to be a painter and be interested in painting certain things, but you need to try to immerse yourself into the subject as much as you can as often as you can.

I think that I’m trying to paint a feeling more than anything. More than I am trying to paint a guy laying a perfect cast to a fish. I like to paint the moments that lead up to right before that fish eats that hook or that fly or that lure. Your buddy’s relying on you. He’s pulled the boat to the perfect spot. When you get to the point where you actually start casting, man, your heart’s going and that fly’s about to hit the water. That’s what I’m painting. And it gets my heart going just thinking about it right now, honestly. That’s what I want you to feel when you see my paintings.

I would like for someone to say, man, he just painted that moment that we all love and crave. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the painting, but man, I’ve been in that situation plenty of times. And maybe a good painter. I wouldn’t mind if someone said, “Yeah, pretty good.”Sonnet 4.6