George Holcombe lost his leg, but he’s still got his sea legs and a love for fishing. Combine those with a passion for woodworking and it was a recipe for this disabled veteran to build his own boat by hand.

“I started fishing when I was a kid, and I mean a little kid,” Holcombe said. His father ran the officer’s club in Salt Lake City and Holcombe learned to fish at the nearby reservoir. “I just love it; when I got hooked on fly fishing — oh God, as soon as I got out of the Army all I did was fly fish.”

Holcombe joined the Army in 1966 and was wounded twice in Vietnam, though neither injury was related to the loss of his leg after 22 years of duty.

The first one involved mortar during a cease-fire.

“I was medevaced to a field hospital and they filled me full of antibiotics and plucked out as much shrapnel as they could, but I got sicker,” Holcombe said. “I will never forget him, the doctor from Georgia, he said ‘Boy, I am going to take your appendix out.’ I woke up after the surgery in a field hospital tent on a cot and I looked at the guy next to me and said ‘Flint, is that you,’ and he said ‘Yeah’ — two of us had our appendix out within 20 minutes of each other.”

Holcombe was sent to Japan two months later, where he was grazed by a bullet. From there, he served in the reserves, teaching at a NCO Academy.

“I was in my 40s and you had to drink all night with the 18-year-olds and then go run them,” Holcombe said. “I loved the Army, I really did. And when they said I had to get out, I wasn’t happy.”

Holcombe was medically retired and had a back surgery afterward.

A year after Holcombe’s knee was replaced, he went to an orthopedic surgeon in Arizona and had a cadaver tendon put in. Three days later, it broke and his tibia was injured so badly that nothing could be done except try for a fusion.

“The pain was the worst pain I had ever been in, so I told them to cut it off and I learned to live without it,” Holcombe said.

That was about three or four years ago, right before he built his boat.

“My boat is my salvation when it comes to fishing,” Holcombe said.

He has a wheelchair designed for rough terrain that allows him to fish riverbanks and shorelines too — but getting out on the water is where the fun is.

“But fishing is another story,” Holcombe said. “You get me out on the water and my favorite quote is, ‘Me, God and the fish,’ that is it. What else is there? That is me; that is just me.”

Holcombe built his 16-foot boat in his shop in Willwood using marine-grade plywood, 20-ounce fiberglass and five coats of resin.

“Aldrich’s was going to order it and their salesman was there and he talked to Tim (VanGrinsven) and we were looking at $150 per sheet and I needed nine sheets, and they had been sitting on 10 sheets of quarter-inch thick and sold it for $65 — I saved a lot of money there,” Holcombe said. “He (VanGrinsven) is a great guy; I think the world of him and his brother, Ken. They pretty much took me under their wings after we built the house, and I just started working with wood when we moved up here.”

Prior to the boat project and the loss of his leg, Holcombe built his home in Willwood as a summer home and stayed at a RV park in Arizona where he started woodworking for the first time. He and his wife later built a home there as well.

He got his start with woodworking in Arizona by building cedar chests, which he still enjoys building.

“They have their own personality, the cedar is just an awesome lumber to work with,” Holcombe said.

Building a boat is an entirely different kind of project. It took all summer to complete and then some touchup work the following spring before Holcombe and his friend, Cole Kary, took it to the Newton Reservoir for its first trip.

“I get a lot of compliments on it,” Holcombe said.

Last year, he took his boat up to Bozeman, Montana, and floated the Yellowstone River for two days. Now he is planning on floating the Missouri River.

“I have seen things out on the water that just amaze you,” Holcombe said. “I like the upper Shoshone and would like to get someone to take me up and float it, because I have to have someone with me and would rather it be someone that knows the river.”

He said he knows the river once he has floated it.

“I floated Flaming Gorge so much I was accused of knowing the fish by their first name,” Holcombe said.

After floating the Wedding of the Rivers near Thermopolis, he said he was asked where he got his boat, and he said he built it.

“He saw I didn’t have a leg and he said ‘You built it?’ and I said ‘Yeah, I had two good helpers, left and right,’” Holcombe said as he raised both arms. “I said she is not for sale ... I built her for me, and am too proud of her to let her go.”

The boat has storage compartments carved into the bench for his tackle, and underneath the other bench is a hidden cooler and additional storage in the lid — all made of smoothly sanded and treated wood.

The whole outfit navigates well, allowing him to go down some Category 4 rapids in the Green River.

“You have to know how to row, and if you do, you can take your boat anywhere,” Holcombe said.