It’s Friday and local Chris Dickey is finishing up a day’s work in the kitchen of Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House. He’s headed to the Mulberry Creek Bridge where his son, Cooper, and a friend, Kolby Williams, are fishing. They’ve gotten a lure stuck in a tree and need help. Pole snippers in hand, Chris is walking through Wiseman Park when he spots a familiar face sporting a Tennessee Volunteers baseball case and aviator sunglasses helping the boys.

“When I got down there, Cooper said Bill Dance had been talking with them for about 45 minutes. They didn’t recognize him at all” Chris says. “As I walked up, I just smiled and ask them if they knew who they were fishing with. They didn’t have a clue. I told them it was Bill Dance, you know the professional bass fisherman. They’re mouths just dropped in disbelief.”

Dance is a native of Lynchburg and often reminisces about learning to fish on the Mulberry Creek with his grandfather on both his social media accounts and his television show, Bill Dance Outdoors.

Dance says he and his wife, Diane, decided to visit Lynchburg Father’s Day weekend and rented a house along the Mulberry Creek. Dance was sitting on the front porch of the rental house when he spotted two boys fishing off the Mulberry Creek Bridge.

“A short time after we arrived and settled in, I glanced out the front door and immediately noticed something I certainly could relate to: two young boys fishing off an old rusted rail bridge that I use to wade under some 72 years ago,” Dance said on his Facebook page.

If you’d like to read Dance’s version of the story, visit his Facebook page by clicking here. •

{The Lynchburg Times is the only independently owned and operated newspaper in Lynchburg. We cover Metro Moore County government, Jack Daniel’s Distillery, Nearest Green Distillery, Tims Ford State Park, Motlow State Community College, Moore County High School, Moore County Middle School, Lynchburg Elementary, Raider Sports, plus regional and state news.}