Arnold Gingrich (1903-1976)

In 1933, at the age of 29, Gingrich founded Esquire magazine. It boasts of having published 15 Nobel and 50 Pulitzer prize winners - more than any other magazine in the world. Esquire, Inc., grew under Gingrich's leadership to a diversified corporation with operating groups in the fields of education & leisure in addition to publishing. A scholar, author, and intrepid trout fisherman, Gingrich guided the editorial policies of the magazine for 43 years.

One of Gingrich's first "catches" among authors was Ernest Hemingway. An ardent fan, Gingrich was buying a Hemingway first edition in a used bookshop one day when the author walked in. He immediately signed Hemingway as a contributor to the magazine. The funds from Hemingway’s first contribution helped him procure his beloved and often written about fishing boat, “Pilar.”

In his later years, Gingrich used his pen and rod to weave himself into the very fabric of the history of fly fishing. Hardly a single name of note has been omitted from his pages. So much so that it’s often difficult to tell who he actually knew and who he merely admired. He was close friends with Lee Wulff and Preston Jennings, and quoted Ed Hewitt constantly. He was the best sort of storyteller in that regard. By today’s standards we might call him a name-dropper, but as all four of his fly fishing books were published within nine years (1965-1974) his works stand as both a reflective account of the golden age of the Catskills paired with the region’s excitement regarding the blossoming of the mid-century tailwaters. He fished and wrote about the Esopus extensively, including an account of using LaBranche’s Pink Lady exclusively on its waters for a full season in the early 50s. He kept meticulous records and reported in hindsight that his daily average on the mighty Esopus was “only 6.5 trout per day.” A far cry from his 13.5 fish average in the season of 1956.

Nevertheless, Gingrich was a staunch traditionalist at heart who shunned the invention of nylon leaders and described the modernist writings of folks like Schweibert and Ovington as merely “okay.” He preferred trout on light tackle and shied away from the sirens of the salt who pulled so many of our Catskill heroes toward the larger prey of the Atlantic. Like many of us, he regarded the writings of the giants as gospel, and honored them all in his own published accounts of fishing, of the classic flies, and of rods not made of graphite. Gingrich’s books helped enshrine the history and heritage of fly fishing to his mass audience at a time when the advent of more sophisticated fishing gear threatened to forever silence our traditions. His books stand up as both great storytelling and unique historical accounts of the history of fly fishing. His temperament and joy make Arnold Gingrich a welcome addition to the Catskill Fly Fishing Hall of Fame.

Samuel Phillippe  1801 - 1877

Solon Phillippe 1842 - 1925

Pennsylvania born Samuel Phillippe, a highly skilled gunsmith, violin maker and avid fisherman, believed that the imported rods from Great Britain were overly cumbersome and unwieldy, thus launching his quest to perfect the split bamboo rod. James Henshall would write in his Book of the Black Bass (1881), “Old Sam Phillippe knew just what a trout fly rod should be…” Thaddeus Norris the “Izaak Walton of America”, as well as “Uncle Thad”, was, besides a fishing friend, a noted tackle maker and rod maker as well. One can only imagine their compelling collaborations. An original Samuel Phillippe rod (none known to exist) is considered the “Holy Grail” to many collectors. Samuel’s son, Solon, joined the company a few years before Samuel’s death in 1877. Collectors have argued that Solan’s magnificent fly rods, adorned with elaborately carved grips, ferrules, rod seats and butts, and exceptionally crafted reels, have exceeded the artistry of his father.

Steve Raymond, a native of Bellingham, Washington, was born to parents who were both fly fishers and started him fishing at an early age. He later made friends with three of the great pioneers of Northwest fly fishing, Enos Bradner, Letcher Lambuth and Ralph Wahl, who became his fishing mentors. He also joined their club, the Washington Fly Fishing Club in Seattle, later serving as its president. He was a charter member of the Federation of Fly Fishermen, editor of its magazine, The Flyfisher, and later became an honorary life member of the FFF (now called  Fly Fishing International). 

A University of Washington graduate, Raymond served as a Navy officer, then embarked on a 30-year-career as a reporter, editor and manager at the Seattle Times. He also wrote frequently for other publications, most notably Sports Illustrated and Fly Fisherman, and his work eventually appeared in at least 24 magazines. He is author of a dozen fly-fishing books, including two award-winning classics, The Year of the Angler and The Year of the Trout, both celebrating the awe and privilege of fishing for beautiful wild fish in beautiful wild places. Other titles include Steelhead Country, The Estuary Flyfisher, Rivers of the Heart, Blue Upright, Nervous Water and Trout Quintet.

Of his books, Fly Fisherman magazine said: “Steve Raymond long ago established himself as an important literary voice and environmental conscience for contemporary fly fishing. He is the kind of regional writer whose fidelity to what he knows makes him universal.” He also reviewed fishing books for several publications over a period of 35 years, and his work was published in nine anthologies. His manuscripts and papers are now part of special collections at the Western Washington University libraries in Bellingham.

After his retirement from the Seattle Times, Raymond became editor of Fly Fishing in Salt Waters magazine until its sale. He received the Roderick Haig-Brown Award for significant contributions to angling literature, the ”Angul” Award for “outstanding contributions to the Heritage and Preservation of the Arte and Science of Fly Fishing in British  Columbia,” the Letcher Lambuth Angling Craftsman and Tommy Brayshaw Awards from the Washington Fly Fishing Club, and the Gil Nyerges Award from the Whidbey Island Fly Fishing Club. He represented Washington State’s fly-fishing clubs in negotiations with President Carter’s Task Force on Northwest Fisheries, seeking settlement of the sometimes violent conflict over local tribal fishing rights, and served as Western vice president of the Museum of American Fly Fishing. He also curated a highly successful exhibit on the history of Northwest fly fishing at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in his home town of Bellingham. 

Though he has fished all over the world, Raymond’s first love has always been the trout, steelhead and salmon of Pacific Northwest waters. He pioneered fly fishing for winter steelhead in the saltwater estuaries of Puget Sound and introduced the now popular tactic of using skated dry flies to catch sea-run cutthroat and coho salmon in those estuaries. He also is originator of several Northwest trout and steelhead fly patterns.

Raymond and his wife, Joan—now a “retired” fly fisher, but a good one!—reside on Whidbey Island in northern Puget Sound.

Charlie, an author, innovator, and fly designer of national importance was born and raised in Schuylkill Haven, a small town in rural eastern Pennsylvania where his fervor for fly fishing commenced upon catching a nine-inch brookie.

 After honorably serving his country in the Korean conflict, he received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology from Penn State, then his Master of Administration from the University of Scranton.  Charlie taught at Penn State in Continuing Education for over 25 years taking early retirement after completing his first book “Meeting and Fishing the Hatches”.  

 He was a kind, humble, unpretentious, and generous person teaching and inspiring thousands of anglers through his many books, articles, videos, macro aquatic insect photography, and classes.  His “Pennsylvania Trout Streams and their Hatches” became the ultimate guidebook for his home state, selling over 100,000 copies.  

After reading a fisheries biologist’s report about trout being attracted to the color blue, he experimented soon creating his most well-known fly, The Patriot. This extremely effective red, white, and blue dry fly has become one of the best-selling attractor patterns across the nation.

He was a member of the Outdoor Writers Association and PA Outdoor Writers Associations when inducted into the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Hall of Fame, joining many of luminaries such as George Harvey, Joe Humphries and Charlie Fox.

Charlie was an elite practitioner, promotor, writer, teacher, and amateur entomologist.

Born in Canterbury, Kent, England in January 1953, Charles started fishing at the age of three (perch). (Is everyone’s first fish a perch?) He attended art colleges in Canterbury and Medway, receiving a Diploma in Art and Design, and started journalism and art work on natural history subjects and angling at local newspapers within the Kent Messenger Group at the age of 19. 

Charles fished a lot - on rivers, but increasingly on still waters - both for tench, pike roach! He gained the Association of Professional Game Angling Instructors qualification during this period. In 1986 Charles pursued a full-time career in both art and journalism and illustrated his first book for Bill Currie’s Days and Nights of Game Angling and increased contributions for eMap GPS angling titles. He also illustrated for the then-Poet Laureate Ted Hughes and gained the prestigious Society of Wildlife Artists accolade.

During the 1980s and 90s, Charles wrote two books: the critically acclaimed Dark Pools, concerning chalk stream fly fishing, and the Sotheby’s Guide to Fly Fishing For Trout. He also crafted the smaller accompanying volume, The Fly Fisher’s Catch, widely used in both the UK and USA by newcomers as a comprehensive guide to the sport.

In the new millenium, he became the Angling Director for the Countryside Alliance, creating the groundbreaking Water Matters pack dedicated to taking fishing into the classroom for schoolchildren aged 11 to 14.

Most recently, Charles received the FFF Ambassadors Award - a very rare honor - for growing the sport worldwide, and also gained accreditation in European and USA FFF Masters Fly-Casting. He also demonstrates fly fishing and fly casting throughout the world and fishes in as many places as he can. Slovenia, Italy, Denmark, Africa, Czech Republic, Cuba, Bahamas, and of course the UK and the USA all have been kind.

Charles was part of Team Sage for nearly 15 years and has assisted companies like Shakespeare, Rio, Fulling Mill, and more recently Simms and recently designed a best selling ange of fly lines for Wychwood.. He also enjoyed being able to write for all the UK’s fly fishing magazines: Trout & Salmon, Trout Fisherman, Stillwater Trout Angler, Total/Today’s Fly Fisher, Fly Fishing & Fly Tying and other publications. He currently writes for The Field magazine and is in the throes of constructing a new book.

He continues to fish and paint unabated and write for Fly Fishing and Fly Tying magazine each month and also is angling columnist for The Field. And very proudly, he is currently Director of Fishing 4 Schools, an initiative he started that takes angling into schools, working with young people from varied backgrounds. And to cap it all, he has been made Director of the national England Youth Fly Fishing Team. In recent years and fished as part of the England Squad in the last Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships held in New Zealand.

William Taylor was born in Paterson New Jersey to Robert and Ellen Taylor (ca. 1890) & married Anna and together they ran a confectionary store in Paterson, NJ.

About 1920 Bill bought the book, "The Idyll of the Split Bamboo" by Dr. George Parker Holden. In 1925 Bill rode his motorcycle to upstate New York, (Highland Mills) to E.F. Payne Rod Co, to purchase some bamboo. Jim Payne refused to sell Bill bamboo as he was riding a motorcycle with a sidecar. Frank Oram, who was a partner in E.F. Payne, waited until Mr. Payne left for the day and gathered several culms of cane and other supplies for him and sent him on his way. Bill placed the cane in the sidecar and went on his way down Route 17, back to Paterson.

Two years later, Bill, was able to successfully design and build his first fly rod from that cane. Bill christened the fly rod by casting and catching a trout on his first outing on the Wallkill River. (This first fly rod is currently housed in the Joan Wulff exhibit, as Bill gifted the fly rod to her).

Bill's fly rods were built for power and accuracy. He eventually incorporated a thumb piece to ensure increased power to the cast. Bill would meticulously work on each fly rod and would de-assemble the rod if it did not meet his expectations. When he finally approved of the development, he would stamp the insignia “Taylor Made” at the base of the fly rod. Bill was a member of the Paterson Fly Casting Club and traveled across the United States competing in fly casting competitions, competing in his last event in 1969 in Cincinnati, finishing 7th. In 1951, Bill competed in the National Association of Angling and Casting Clubs Tournament finishing with a cast of 143 feet for 3rd place. In 1957 in Barberton Ohio Bill cast 153 feet for average with the longest cast of 157 feet for 8th place overall.

Throughout his life he would assist and coach individuals using “Taylor Made” fly rods. These individuals consisted of Johnny Dieckman and Gene Andregg, but his most famous student was Joan Salvato whom he met when she was 18 years old in Paterson New Jersey. Bill’s fly rod design was used as a pattern for rods designed by Charles Ritz, and made by Pezon et Michel in France. Bill moved from Paterson to his nephew Roland Taylor's home in Union Center, NY in the late 60’s at the age of 77, where he continued to craft fly rods, as well as tie flies.

"As a young boy, my brother and I, remember him standing on a platform casting for hours. He would sit in his room and shave down cane day after day, until he felt it was ready to be assembled. Even upon assembly the rod needed to pass Bill's tests to receive the “Taylor Made” stamp of approval." -Dave and John Taylor (Bill's great nephews)

Bill was proud of his accomplishments but did not brag about them.

"As a young boy I can remember him speaking of several things, one being that he had the opportunity to fish with another of today’s inductees, Ted Williams, and the other was working with Joan Salvato." -John Taylor (Bill's great nephew)

Bill passed away at the age of 88 in upstate New York and enjoyed the art of fly-casting and all that it included right up to his death.

Ted Williams! Even the name inspires awe! "The last of the 400 hitters," "The Kid" and bearing other nicknames, he was regarded as one of the greatest hitters in baseball history.

Born August 30, 1918, named Theodore Samuel Williams, and passed on July 5, 2002, Ted was also a great fly fisher. Williams believed that there were three fish worthy of any true sportsman: tarpon, bonefish and Atlantic salmon. After he retired, following a 19 year career in baseball, mostly at the Boston Red Sox, interrupted for periods of military service in World War 2 and the Korean War, he spent time between a home on the Miramichi River where he salmon fished and Islamorada, Florida where he sought tarpon and bonefish.

Williams called the Atlantic salmon "the greatest of game fish" according to John Underwood, who in 1982 coauthored with Ted a book entitled Ted Williams Fishing "The Big Three."

Ted Williams made what is thought to be the first commercial sports endorsement in history when he made a deal with Sears Roebuck (brokered by another HOF member, Ted Rogowski) and promoted sales of fishing tackle, thus encouraging millions of persons to take up the sport.

For being an icon of fly fishing and for inspiring countless anglers, Ted Williams is now inducted into the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame.

Photo Credit Jackson Hole News & Guide

The fly fishing bug from Ed Zern’s cartoon-filled Catskills-classic, "To Hell With Fishing," infected Paul Bruun in the 1950’s. Although hundreds of miles from any trout stream, discovering two 9-ft. bamboos and a Medalist reel in his dad’s Miami Beach garage propelled the youngster to nearby Biscayne Bay seawalls to cast crudely tied bucktails and streamers.

In 1955 “Big Paul,” a veteran newspaper man, introduced his 6th grader to fly fishing for trout during a two-month Western road trip that included Green, Madison, Truckee and Merced River outings. Visiting New York the next year, Jim Deren at the Angler’s Roost encouraged the Bruuns to catch Atlantic salmon in the Miramichi during their driving vacation to Quebec.

Years later when offered the Jackson Hole Guide editor job, Paul’s friend, Lefty Kreh solved a delicate family dilemma that required leaving aging parents and their thriving South Florida newspaper. Lefty reasoned: “Your parents know you love newspapering and the West. Try Jackson for a year. Then you will all know what to do!”

Since that April 1973 relocation, Bruun fashioned a credible Wyoming career that introduced a weekly Outdoors column that he continues (biweekly) in the Jackson Hole News & Guide, established/edited the Jackson Hole Daily, served for 12 years on the Jackson Town Council as the original Fishin’ Politician, guided/outfitted fly fishing float trips for 37 seasons and with partner Ralph Headrick, created the South Fork Skiff, a revolutionary low-profile fiberglass river boat especially for fly fishing.

Cumulation of research, expert information and history from decades of writing columns, articles and demonstrations as well as chronicling extensive guiding and travel activities allowed Bruun to contribute suggestions both to readers as well as fly industry innovators such as SIMMS, Orvis and Patagonia, where he still fulfills dual roles as token XXL and longest tenured Fly Fishing Ambassador. His “Classics” column on the final page of TU’s TROUT magazine highlights historical fly fishing subjects.

Bruun is especially proud of having been designated the Wyoming advisor for the expansion of the Dingell-Johnson Aid to Sport Fishing Act by the sponsoring American Fisheries Society. Introduction of this project to then Wyoming U. S. Senator Malcolm Wallop ultimately resulted in the 1984 Wallop-Breaux Amendment that extended 10% excise tax coverage to imported tackle, marine/navigation equipment and clothing.“I’ve benefitted from extensive help by skilled and generous mentors. Their inspiration encourages me to pass along as much fly fishing and outdoors knowledge in order to leave our precious resources a little better than before.”

Dave Brandt (1944-2020) was born in Oneonta, NY. He was a tool and die designer at Amphenol Corp Bendix Connector Division in nearby Sidney until its closing in 1983. His designs resulted in many patents for the Company.

Dave had a life-long love of fly fishing, tying, and conservation that was greatly influenced by Harry and Elsie Darbee. Dave never did anything halfway and would delve deep into the history of anything that caught his attention be it fly fishing, tying and its materials, conservation, or billiards.

His casting so impressed Joan and Lee Wulff that in 1987 he was invited to be an instructor at their world-famous Fly-Fishing School, where he remained a fixture until his passing more than 30 years later.

Dave’s accomplishments and awards were many: He invented the “Tied and True” hackle gauge, created several new flies such as his BG Dunn, taught classes, made tying DVDs, drew technical illustrations for friends books and wrote a dozen articles under the pseudonym "Brooks Gordon”. In 2004 he became only the 3rd American to be honored with the prestigious Canadian IWL ‘Jack Sutton’ award. Trout Unlimited Chapter 210 officially became the ‘Dave Brandt’ Chapter in 2007, and in 2017 Dave was inducted into CFFCM’s ‘Catskill Legends’.

For more than 30 years Dave, an acknowledged master of Catskill style flies, presented his expertise at most of the major fly-fishing shows, in the States, Canada, and Europe. Onlookers were fascinated with the magic he performed tying wood duck wings on his flawless dries. And in 2018 Dave had a major roll in the movie “Land of Little Rivers,” a fitting finale to a life well spent.

Legendary bamboo rod maker Bob Taylor was inducted into the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame in 2019.

Taylor began building rods just out of high school and has spent his life in the craft, with Leonard Rods, with Thomas & Thomas, and on his own. Any time Taylor talks rod building he draws a crowd eager to learn from his experience.

Nathaniel Reed was among the architects of the Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and was instrumental in organizing the first Earth Day. 

On July 3 in Quebec, Mr. Reed fell and struck his head on a rock just  after hooking a 16-pound salmon on one of his favorite rivers, and never regained consciousness. He died eight days later, on July 11, 11  days short of his 85th birthday. 

The New York Times hailed Reed as a “champion of Florida’s environment,” detailing his efforts to prevent a jet port from being built in Big  Cypress Swamp, leading to his work in drafting the Endangered Species Act in 1973. 

Mr. Reed served as an Assistant Interior Secretary from 1971 to 1977  under presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. According to  The Washington Post, he helped preserve millions of acres of wilder ness in Alaska, banned dangerous pesticides and endured death  threats from Western ranchers after he sent federal agents to stop the  widespread killing of federally-protected eagles. 

In 1972, Mr. Reed accompanied Julie Nixon Eisenhower on a tour of  the Everglades, the Post recalled. Two years later, Florida’s Big Cy press National Preserve was established as one of the country’s first  two national preserves. 

Mr. Reed also had roles in the banning of DDT and other chemical  agents dangerous to wildlife and humans. He took steps to preserve  California redwood forests, blocked construction of a jet airport near  Jackson Hole, Wyo., and called for a treaty protecting polar bears from  hunting. 

“I suggest to you that the American dream, based as it is on the concept of unlimited space and resources, has run aground on the natural  limits of the earth,” he wrote in a 1974 essay. “It has foundered on the  shoals of the steadily emerging environmental crisis, a crisis broadly  defined to include not only physical and biographical factors, but the  social consequences that flow from them.”

Born in Oswego, N.Y., Fran's early fascination with fish and fishing began with the waters around Lake Ontario, where much of his fisheries work continues. 

His fly fishing commenced while he was young enough to run a paper route, the proceeds from which going mostly to support his growing  tackle needs. As he was developing as a serious fly rodder, he found  the Delaware River and as a still youthful angler, he spent much time  there, on the Beaverkill and other Catskill waters. 

Graduating from Syracuse University, he did further work in outdoor  education and natural resource management, all while beginning to  earn a living guiding and otherwise working in the fishing world. Fifteen more years of guiding nearly took Fran firmly into the private  sector working in the fishing business. This valuable experience and  his keen natural awareness of the great potential of the Great Lakes  fishery all served him well. He was often called upon to counsel with  the New York DEC on fisheries and natural resource matters. He became a specialist with DEC, leading to his work with the hatchery at Altmar. 

Fran was instrumental in the first dam removal project on any Lake  Ontario tributary. This venture soon proved to be key in restoring valuable Brook Trout spawning habitat to that stream. 

He was responsible for the first "fly fishing only" section on public water in New York in 1989. 

He was the lead person on a comprehensive habitat analysis of lands around Lake Ontario. His efforts as a spokesman for the fish pioneered the teaching of anglers that the big Pacific Salmon that entered the Lake Ontario feeder streams might indeed be taken using tradition al sport fishing methods and tackle. He championed this at a time when many said snagging of these fish be allowed to continue. Fran's ethics and his resolution were ultimately key in the implementation of the "no snagging" regulations in place today, and in providing the great fishing to be found around Lake Ontario today.

Born in 1630, Cotton is being honored for his contributions to The Compleat Angler, by CFFCM Hall of Fame member Izaak Walton. 

An angler in his own right, Cotton contributed "Instructions how to angle for a trout or grayling in a clear stream." His additions spanned 12  chapters on fishing clear water, mainly on fly fishing.  

Another addition to The Compleat Angler was Cotton's well-known poem "The Retirement", which appeared from the 5th edition on wards. 

Some of Cotton's advice is still useful, such as casting away from a  fish, and using smaller, neater flies rather than large, bushy ones. 

He devotes a whole chapter to collection of flies for every month of  the year. His description of the stonefly still rings true today: “His body is long and pretty thick, and as broad at the tail, almost, as at the mid dle; his colour is a very fine brown, ribbed with yellow and much yellower on the belly than on the back: he has two or three little whisks  also at the tag of his tail, and two little horns upon his head: his wings,  when full grown, are double, and flat down upon his back, of the same colour but rather darker than his body and longer than it... “On a calm day you shall see the still-deeps continually all over circles by the fishes rising, who will gorge themselves with these flies, will they purge again out of their gills.”

Vernon S. “Pete” Hidy was a fly-fishing writer, editor, photographer, conservationist, and innovative fly tyer who campaigned tirelessly for James E. Leisenring’s place in the fly-fishing pantheon. It was Hidy who coined the word flymph (c. 1962–64) to help popularize aspects of the old British tradition of hackle flies (or soft hackles) fished just below the water’s surface. 

 Hidy was born on August 9, 1914, in Springfield, Ohio. After moving to Pennsylvania in 1934, he fished for ten years in the Pocono and Catskill mountains, where he became a fishing companion to both Reuben R. Cross and James E. Leisenring. The Art of Tying the Wet Fly (Dodd, Mead, 1941), co-produced by Leisenring and Hidy with mentoring from Cross, became a milestone of American angling literature. After serving in the Navy in WW II, Hidy moved his family to the west coast where he lived and fished in California, Oregon, and Idaho.

He founded the Flyfisher’s Club of Oregon and was influential in talks between his employer, the Boise Cascade Company, and the Nature Conservancy, resulting in the establishment of the Silver Creek Preserve in Idaho. He was also a member of the Anglers’ Club of New York and the Flyfishers’ Club, London. The journal of the Oregon club, The Creel, which Hidy founded and co-edited with Robert Wethern and others, appeared twenty-one times in as many years, 1961–1982, ceasing upon Hidy’s death in Boise, Idaho, January 1983, at age 68.

Arnold Gingrich, cofounder and editor of Esquire magazine and author of The Well-Tempered Angler, The Joys of Trout, and American Trout Fishing, wrote:

 “As editor of The Creel, the beautiful and distinctive organ of The Flyfisher’s Club of Oregon, Pete Hidy was a trailblazer in bringing a civilizing overlay of appreciation of the traditional and historic lore to the then generally rough and ready state of Western fly fishing in general. To my mind, V. S. Hidy can never be praised enough, for he showed the way, like a lantern in the dark, long before such journals as The Flyfisher, Trout, Fly Fisherman Magazine, and The American Fly Fisher were ever dreamed of. He is one of those rare spirits who could, almost single-handedly, give a sport a good name.” [Arnold Gingrich, The Fishing in Print (Clinton, N.J.: New Win Publishing, 1974), 323.]

Hidy’s most personal work was the book The Pleasures of Fly Fishing (Winchester Press, 1972) featuring eighty-seven photographs by Hidy, selected passages from angling literature, and a foreword by Sparse Grey Hackle. The spirit of that project is summarized in Hidy’s credo (otherwise known as “Hidy’s Law”): “Fishermen may find unexpected pleasures more enjoyable than those they seek.”

Steve Rajeff’s tournament casting accomplishments to date (2017) include 45-time Grand All-Around Champion of the American Casting Association, and 14-time World Casting Champion. 

Born in San Francisco in 1956, Rajeff grew up a few blocks from the Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club. Caster and coach Mel Kreiger met Steve when he was 9 or 10 and saw promise in the boy’s casting. Within weeks, Steve beat Mel and all the men at GGACC in a casting tournament. Casting champion Jon Tarantino inspired Steve to compete and used him as a role model. GGACC sponsored Steve at age 13 to travel and compete in the 1971 ACA Nationals in St. Louis. Steve took third in the All-Around: two years later, at age 15, he took first.

During summers in the ‘70s, Rajeff guided in Alaska and taught at the Fenwick Fly Fishing Schools in California, Idaho and Montana. In 1979, he earned a BA in Marketing at San Francisco State. His first industry job was at Winslow Manufacturing, later renamed SAGE, thanks to Steve’s suggestion. Seeking an equity stake for the future, Steve left SAGE and took a job at the newly formed G. Loomis company, where he learned quickly from Gary Loomis and took over rod design. Steve is responsible for the actions of the first IMX and GLX rods.

In 1994, Rajeff designed the first single-foot fly-rod guides and introduced rods with them. This achieved a significant weight reduction since they used less metal, windings and epoxy. Steve designed all the rods the G.Loomis company offered from 1985 to the present.

 Rajeff was inducted into the Northern California Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers Hall of Fame in 2006, and the California Outdoorsman Hall of Fame in 2009. He has served on the Board of Directors for the International Casting Sport Federation and the American Casting Association for over 10 years, and has also held the office of Vice-President of the American Casting Association, a 501(C)3 organization.

Steve’s tournament casting accomplishments to date (2017) include 45-time Grand All-Around Champion of the American Casting Association. He is also 14-time World Casting Champion. In competition in ICSF 2-Hand Fly Distance in Toronto, he cast 306 feet. In 2009 at the World Championships of Fly Casting in Ireland, Steve cast 165 feet with a floating line and 36 feet of backing. In the Sea Trout Event, the official line is an 8wt WF floating line measuring 120 ft.

Steve has been an integral part of the modern fly fishing age. For the future, he looks forward to new technology, good fishing and matching the casting longevity of one of his mentors, the late Dick Fujita, who participated in 52 ACA Nationals.

For Ted Niemeyer, fly tying was nearly a religion. He was a meticulous craftsman, artist, fly tying historian, fanatical collector and the ultimate perfectionist.

Niemeyer was a master fly tyer who developed a keen sense of minimalist design and proportion early on. He deconstructed flies of the great tyers of the past to learn how their flies were built, and was an advocate of natural materials when synthetic materials were gaining popularity. His design philosophy stressed movement and a sparse silhouette as the keys to effective fly design. A pioneer of realism in fly tying, Ted was one of the first tyers to use goose biots for legs on his realistic stripped quill nymph patterns. He was well known for his realistic nymphs, yet his versions of classic patterns set a new standard.

Niemeyer was so obsessed with quality materials that he spent his lunch hours searching for new materials in New York City’s Garment District. Known for finding a use for all parts of the feather, he was infamous for tying amazing flies at demonstrations from the scraps of feathers and threads discarded by other tyers. The one feather Ted did the most with was the goose wing feather. From that one feather came his stripped quill nymphs, dyed and married Atlantic salmon fly wings, trout wet fly wings, wing cases, and the legs in countless nymph patterns. All styles of fly were equally interesting to him.

In 1967, Niemeyer was featured in a Sports Illustrated magazine article on realistic and innovative fly tying. He wrote the fly tying column for Fly Fisherman magazine from 1976 to 1981, and the chapter he wrote for the classic book “Art Flick’s Master Fly-Tying Guide” brought him into the spotlight. He drew large crowds when demonstrating fly tying at fishing and hunting shows in New England and the Pacific Northwest, often giving away special flies and materials to interested beginners. His flies brought high bids at charity auctions all over New England. 

Niemeyer spent many hours at the Angler’s Cove fly shop on 2nd Avenue in New York City learning the history and methods of the Catskill school of fly tying. He studied intensively with Charles Defeo, and revered Harry and Elsie Darbee, Walt and Winnie Dette, Roy Steenrod, and Rube Cross among others. He became one of the few experts who could reliably authenticate flies tied by other master tyers. He was methodical in his analysis and contagious with his enthusiasm for the art form.

Theodore Richard (Ted) Rogowski was born December 20, 1927 in Chicopee, Massachusetts and passed away peacefully July 5, 2021, at age 93.  Ted lived a long and productive life connecting countless people to his passion of fly fishing, environmental protection and conservation.  A beloved, grandfather, and husband, Ted was raised in a family of nine; his father Louis Rogowski and mother Leonora Ciesla had seven children of which Ted was the youngest.  He is survived by his sister Evelyn Buika; his daughter Laurie Heintz, sons Edward (Buzz) Rogowski and Barry Rogowski; grandsons Bron Heintz, Toren Heintz, and Connor Rogowski; granddaughter Shannon Rogowski.  

Ted earned a full scholarship to Amherst College, where he received his undergraduate degree. He served in the US Army during the Korean war, then attended Columbia Law School. He photographed and filmed with outdoor writer/filmmaker Lee Wulff and travelled with Lee to locations in the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador during law school summers. Ted joined the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, LLP as a patent attorney; clients included baseball legend Ted Williams and playwright Eugene O’Neill.

He married Marjorie Stoughton and they moved their young family to Virginia; Ted worked for the federal government in Washington, D.C. as an attorney.  He helped form the Environmental Protection Agency, and implemented the federal Clean Water Act, building sewage treatment plants and conducting civil enforcement to clean the nation’s waterways. He also helped protect the Hudson River Valley from excessive highway projects.

Ted was a tireless volunteer for many fishing and conservation organizations, including The Anglers Club of New York, The Federation of Fly Fishers, Washington Fly Fishers, and the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum (CFFC&M). He was one of the founders and the fourth president of the New York City conservation group Theodore Gordon Flyfishers, and in 2002 was recognized with its prestigious Salmo Award for conservation activism. In 2017 Ted was inducted in the CFFC&M’s Hall of Fame.

In the early 1970s Ted moved his family to Seattle, Washington, to serve as EPA’s  Regional Counsel for Region Ten, overseeing environmental law cases for the states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. He was an avid life-long trout, salmon and steelhead fisherman, and enjoyed summer fishing vacations in Montana, Alaska, Wyoming and Yellowstone Park. 

After the passing of his wife Marjorie, Ted married Joan Salvato Wulff in 2002, and lived on the Beaverkill River with Joan for the remainder of his life, fishing the local rivers and continuing his volunteer efforts at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum, as well as with the Boy Scouts of America's fly fishing badge.

At the age of 93, Ted was proud to learn that his newly designed dry flies were featured on the cover of Fly Tyer Magazine accompanied by his article “A Better Way to Tie Mayfly Wings.”  

Bill Elliott is among the world’s premier wildlife artists. His vivid paintings, full of action and light, capture the beauty of wild animals and fish. Elliott’s paintings and drawings have illustrated 38 books, including Datus C. Proper’s What the Trout Said and Stoneflies for the Angler by Eric Leiser and Robert H. Boyle. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Field & Stream, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield.

Elliott has joked that God displayed an “interesting” sense of humor by starting the young artist’s life in Brooklyn, New York. His urban surroundings did nothing to damper his love of wildlife, and by age 11 he had already made up his mind to be a wildlife artist. By 13 Elliott had taught himself to fly fish, traveling by train to fish the East Branch of the Croton River in the Hudson Valley – a river that would one day benefit greatly from Elliott’s conservation ethic. After his studies at the School of Visual Art in New York, he served in the U.S. Army, where postings in Alaska and New Mexico afforded him the opportunity to hunt, fish and serve as an illustrator.

Back in New York, Elliott designed advertisements for Macy’s and then became the Art Director at the Bronx Zoo.

Eventually, Elliott became a freelance artist, establishing friendships with Bernard “Lefty” Kreh, who first took him fishing for tarpon, and Eric Leiser, who introduced him to leading figures in the publishing world. Elliott’s trout lithographs at the Crossroads of Sport Gallery in New York began selling faster than he could produce them. When he relocated to the Hudson Valley, Elliott became active with Trout Unlimited and worked to enlist the support of local sportsmen’s clubs for reduced stocking and more restrictions on the East Branch of the Croton, which helped the river become one of New York State’s premier tailwater trout fisheries.

Elliott and his best friend and angling companion, James “Jed” Dempsey, made a highly significant contribution to the Catskill Center when Dempsey purchased legendary bamboo rodmaker Pinky Gillum’s milling machine and the two men transported it from Ohio for installation at the Center.

Elliott has traveled the world in pursuit of fish to catch and paint, including 38 trips to the Amazon between 1998 and 2008. In 1985, Elliott and his wife, Carol, moved from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to Tequesta, Florida, where he continued his pursuit of saltwater fish, a passion ignited when he caught 63 tarpon on his first trip to Costa Rica with Lefty Kreh. He lives today in North Carolina, where he says his life has come full circle, back to catching and painting trout.

John Gierach is the most popular fly fishing author of his era. A gifted writer and keen observer, his essays are beloved for their wry humor, irreverent wisdom and unapologetic devotion to fly fishing as a way of life.

Born in Illinois and raised in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, Gierach earned a degree in philosophy from Findlay College in Ohio in June of 1969. In July of that year he bought his first Colorado fishing license, and began a life of fishing and travel in the mountain west and around the world that provided the settings, characters and plots for scores of stories over the next five decades. He is the author of 20 books, including two “obscure books of poetry” and 18 collections of fishing essays. His first book, Trout Bum, established him as the spiritual leader of a generation of anglers who longed for the freedom to spend their time wading mountain streams, puzzling out mayfly hatches and using bamboo rods to cast their flies to strong, wild trout.

Gierach’s stories gave readers across the country a feeling of familiarity and affection for his adopted hometown of Lyons, Colorado and its local streams, the Big Thompson and St. Vrain Rivers. His spare but exquisitely crafted depictions of the people he fished with, including A.K. Best, Ed Engle and Mike Lawson, brought them to life in his readers’ minds. He writes about blue-ribbon trout in famous rivers and blue-collar bass in golf course ponds, about bouncing around the Midwest in his Uncle Leonard’s fishing car, the near-folly of salmon fishing in Scotland, and long trips in his pickup truck to the magical streams of Montana.

Gierach is the only fly fishing writer to consistently be published by the one of the world’s premier publishing houses. The back covers of his books include praise not only from the fly fishing press but from such authorities as Publisher’s Weekly and Sports Illustrated, which ranked him in the same league with Mark Twain. The Wall Street Journal has called him “the voice of the common angler.”

Seamlessly entwined with Gierach’s light-hearted, self-deprecating humor is a serious and inspiring conviction that wild creatures and wild places must be preserved. And despite his own commitment to fly fishing, the split-cane-wielding philosopher gently reminds anglers not to take themselves or their sport too seriously. After all, at the end of the day, they are “standing in a river, waving a stick.”

One of the most honored sports journalists of his era, Curt Gowdy began fly fishing at age 8 with his father, Edward Gowdy, on the rivers of their native Wyoming. As his career unfolded, Gowdy brought the joy and excitement of fly fishing and other methods of angling to millions of Americans as host and producer of The American Sportsman. 

A towering figure in American broadcasting, Gowdy is widely known to generations of sports fans. He covered eight Olympic games, nine Super Bowls, 16 World Series and 24 NCAA championship tournaments. He was at the microphone when Ted Williams homered in the final at-bat of his career, when the Mets beat the Orioles in the 1969 World Series, when Joe Namath and the Jets beat the Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl and when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. He was the first sports figure to win the coveted Peabody Award for Outstanding Journalistic Achievement.

Gowdy is celebrated in the Catskill Center’s Hall of Fame for his legacy in fishing. He was especially enthusiastic about the fishing in the Florida Keys, beginning in 1949 when he fished with Ted Williams during spring training. He served as the celebrity host of the Redbone Celebrity Tournament Series (for cystic fibrosis research efforts) and the Boy Scout Backbone Celebrity Classic. Six of his 13 Emmy Wards were for his work on The American Sportsman. In tribute to his many years with the Cheeca Redbone, the Curt Gowdy Lounge, a popular sports and anglers oceanfront bar, was named after him at the Cheeca Lodge in Islamorada in the Florida Keys. Of the 21 halls of fame into which he has been inducted, five, including the Catskill Center, are dedicated to fishing and conservation. 

Gowdy was a tireless advocate for sportsmanship and the protection of fish and fish habitat. He was a founding member of Bonefish and Tarpon Unlimited, the chairman of the American League of Anglers and a trustee of the International Game Fish Association. He served on Board of Advisors for the National Foundation for Conservation Environmental Officers; was the Chairman of American League of Anglers, a conservation group to preserve the outdoors and fishing, and was a trustee of the International Game Fish Foundation and the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association. Perhaps most fittingly for a lifelong sportsman, an outdoor reserve bears his name: Curt Gowdy State Park near Cheyenne, Wyoming.