We Lost Another One

We just lost another major figure in the world of fly fishing. Dave Whitlock was a very prolific author, appearing in many publications covering everything from Trout to Bass. It was his writing on Bass that first interested me. This was in the early 80’s, and that was the beginning of my obsession of using the fly rod for all my Bass fishing. Several years ago he was at the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo and I had an opportunity to me him. He was a kind, generous, and humble guy, and we had a great conversation.

S.R.

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I have a bunch of his books, mostly about fly patterns. He was legendary in the fly fishing world. May he RIP!

He was a very good artist too. The paintings he made of various flies are just beautiful.

Another great author and fisherman from what I’d say was the golden age of modern fly fishing writing.

Bass fishing with the fly rod was the gateway drug for so many of us here in flyover land. I saw fly fishing in magazines as a kid and for reasons that I cannot explain, I just HAD to do it. Well, had it not been for authors writing about bass and panfish on the fly rod, I’d have never had a chance because that’s the only fishing I had that was accessible to me.

Dave was on the cover of Fly Fisherman magazine back when I was reading as much as I could about fly fishing for trout.

He was holding this huge hook nose brown with a hopper patter stuck in its mouth and there was at least a 1″ tag end hanging off the hopper eye. It was then I realized the trout were not as picky as they were made out to be.

I still have Dave and Lefty’s book on knots.

RIP boy’s! I’ve heard those big trout are easy(er) in heaven.