Who are the 50 most influential fly fishers?

[Acristickid]

Flyfisherman magazine has come up with a list of the 50 most influential.

( I have not found a suitable way to copy the list - if someone can please feel free to add)

No Joe Humphries. April Volkey number 9?? No Bob Clouser.

Who should be on the list?


https://news.orvis.com/fly-fishing/who-are-the-50-most-influential-fly-fishers-of-all-time

 

[JackM]

Frederick, Shakey, and Lefty K. And Alby and you.

 

[dryflyguy]

I kind of chuckled at that list too.

No Charlie Meck? He only wrote like 15 books or so. And who knows how many articles for various fishing magazines

 

[Dave_W]

Saw the list too - interesting - many predictable names but some of the selections had me scratching my head too.

I think the author(s) wanted to include a few selections from the younger class of Millenial FFers who have built their names in social media, trout bum guiding, or Euro-tournaments. Nothing wrong with that, but it precludes more traditional names who emerged through writing (there are just a LOT of FFers who write books and have a teaching/literaray talent). There are many of us still in the camp who much respect traditional writing and regard it in higher esteem than social media presence.

For folks my age who cut our FFing teeth 30-40 years ago reading the old names who wrote books and were already old or deceased by the time their works impressed us... it's hard to rank younger FFers with the old breed.

Anyway, thinking in terms of a shorter list of American FFers who have been most influential, I'd rank these as the top ten off the top of my mind and in no particular order:

Joe Brooks, George Harvey, Theodore Gordon, Lee Wulf, Art Flick, Ernest Schwiebert, Lefty Kreh, Vince Marinaro, Dave Whitlock (my personal favorite due to his flies and artwork), and Charlie Fox.

What say you?

 

[RLeep2]

Seems silly to me; like something you'd see in People or Rolling Stone.

Oh well, carry on....

 

[Swattie87]

Clearly a very subjective topic, and relative to the eyes of the person making the list. I fall probably somewhere in between old school and millennial bro in terms of FFing. To be honest, my biggest influences early on were guys on this site...pcray, salmonoid, csoult, k-bob, DW, troutbert to name a few, and a few other guys who don’t post any more. Many of those same guys I consider friends and fishing buddies now. Cool stuff.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

My impression was 1) Who did Joe Humphries **** off? And I later learned many people and 2) Nearly everyone on the list had some connection to the publication, so it was self-promotion too.

 

[PennKev]

The cover says most influential fly fishers "of this era"

IMO, it's pretty easy to argue that Humphrey's, Meck, Harvey, Kreh, etc are from the previous era. These guys are ancient, or dead.

I think guys like George Daniels and Kelly Galloup are more relevant now and are essentially the Joe Brooks and Lefty Krehs of today. They are influencing how fly fishing is developing right now and they are still active participants in that development. They have not yet gotten to the point where they have been repeating themselves for the last 25 years.

The other argument is that "influential" doesn't equate to "best fisherman" or "best fishing writer" or "all around good guy." It's sort of like when Hitler was Time magazine's man of the year. April Vokey doesn't do much for me, but hey, an attractive girl with a fly rod influences some people.

 

[edhank]

Leaving out Joe Humphreys and including April Vokey made the list hogwash for me. The bikini top pics and other risqué type photos got her the initial attention. Good for her on capitalizing on that and maybe in 20 years I could see her on a list of influencers. She is doing an excellent job with her podcast and I hope she keeps it up.

Joe has done a lot for our sport. From what I can tell, he's done more to influence modern nymphing techniques than anyone else. I don't know anything about Joe pissing people off, but I do know that I first saw a mono rig used for nymphing on a Joe video a long time ago.

my 2 cents.

 

[afishinado]

PennKev wrote:
The cover says most influential fly fishers "of this era"

IMO, it's pretty easy to argue that Humphrey's, Meck, Harvey, Kreh, etc are from the previous era. These guys are ancient, or dead.

I think guys like George Daniels and Kelly Galloup are more relevant now and are essentially the Joe Brooks and Lefty Krehs of today. They are influencing how fly fishing is developing right now and they are still active participants in that development. They have not yet gotten to the point where they have been repeating themselves for the last 25 years.

The other argument is that "influential" doesn't equate to "best fisherman" or "best fishing writer" or "all around good guy." It's sort of like when Hitler was Time magazine's man of the year. April Vokey doesn't do much for me, but hey, an attractive girl with a fly rod influences some people.

PennKev nailed it ^

Many, most of the aforementioned famous FFers are of a past era, not "of this era" > see mag cover below:

 

[redietz]

Dave_W wrote:

Anyway, thinking in terms of a shorter list of American FFers who have been most influential, I'd rank these as the top ten off the top of my mind and in no particular order:

Joe Brooks, George Harvey, Theodore Gordon, Lee Wulf, Art Flick, Ernest Schwiebert, Lefty Kreh, Vince Marinaro, Dave Whitlock (my personal favorite due to his flies and artwork), and Charlie Fox.

What say you?

Not a bad list. A bit biased toward PA, but that's to be expected on a PA forum. (I'm not sure how well known George Harvey and Charlie Fox are outside our area.)

Names I'd like to see as well, assuming we're limiting ourselves to Americans, would be Ray Bergman (certainly my biggest influence) and Jim Leisenring (or Pete Hidy).

If we're not limiting ourselves to Americans, I don't see how any list could exclude Charles Cotton, Frederick Halford or G.E.M. Skues.

EDIT: Just saw that the list from the magazine limited to the last five decades. I'd be hard pressed to come with more than about 20 names, if that, from those decades. I've never heard of some of the people on their list, and certainly wouldn't rank half of those I have heard of in my top 50 of all time.

 

[redietz]

PennKev wrote:
The cover says most influential fly fishers "of this era"

IMO, it's pretty easy to argue that Humphrey's, Meck, Harvey, Kreh, etc are from the previous era. These guys are ancient, or dead.

The actual article defined "this era" as "the last five decades" which would include all the the people you just mentioned. I frankly don't see how you can call someone influential if that "influence" doesn't last generations.

You don't elect people to the Baseball Hall of Fame until they've been retired at least five years, or dead. It's hard to see how you can put contemporary anglers into any sort of perspective if they're still alive and writing.

 

[govtmule]

No bobabooey?..I mean Bob Clouser

 

[troutbert]

It specifies the last 50 years, which goes back to 1968.

I think Bob Clouser should be included because he probably did more to popularize flyfishing for smallmouth than anyone else. Plus, his iconic Clouser minnow. Think about how many saltwater patterns are variations of that fly.

Russ Blessing also. His contribution was the Wooly Bugger, but that is plenty. It may be the most popular fly pattern of all and is used all over the world for many different fish. And many other streamer patterns are offshoots of the Bugger. It revolutionized streamer fishing.

And who was it that came up with the beadhead flies? Roman Moser? If so, he should be on the list.

But, I agree with RLeeP. The whole concept seems lame, and also reminded me of Rolling Stone magazine and their endless lists of best bands, best songs, best guitar players, etc.

It's all highly subjective. These lists have the effect of canonizing some, and leaving out others, without any logical basis.

Rather than engaging in list building it would be better to write articles from time to time about different contributions made by various people, so that the history will be documented and people new to flyfishing can learn something of its legacy.

 

[dryflyguy]

Magazines need things to write about.
And I think it was an interesting idea.

When I first received my issue the other day, I scanned the features page as usual - and that article just jumped out for me. And I immediately read it.

FWIW, the FFM staff even state right below the initial list, that they "freely admit no one will completely agree with it"

It reminds of when TU magazine put out a list of the top 100 trout streams, quite a few years back now.
I thought their picks for PA were pretty poor.
But it did generate a lot of discussion

 

[troutbert]

Al Troth, creator of the Elk Hair Caddis.

That is one of the most iconic flies. And spawned a whole host of related flies, including the Stimulator and numerous stonefly patterns.

When I started flyfishing around 1970, a caddis hatch would come off, and to "imitate" them, people would use an Adams!

I can't remember for sure when the EHC became popular here, but I'm thinking about the mid 1970s.

 

[redietz]

troutbert wrote:

I can't remember for sure when the EHC became popular here, but I'm thinking about the mid 1970s.

1978 was when it was first published in Fly Tyer and became super popular. IIRC, Troth was also the guy who added a peacock thorax and legs to the pheasant tail.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

Pretty light on flatbrimmers like Oliver White...

 

[afishinado]

Nymph-wristed wrote:
Pretty light on flatbrimmers like Oliver White...

^ More of a salt guy. Agreed, not many FBers besides him made the list....

 

[DaveS]

I’d nominate Krayfish from here. He influenced me to buy a boat and now I drive 600+ miles round trip to fish the D with him.

Yea, I definitely blame him.