My grandmother dated Gordon MacQuarrie and he used to visit us in Northern Wisconsin when I was young. I still have a signed book he gave me as a kid. I agree, his book on fly fishing is a hidden gem (everyone knows of his duck hunting writings). In the case of Gierach it's very hard to sustain truly great writing when you publish a book every year or two; but his worst writings are better than most people's best. He's terrific.

Ritz is fascinating. He went into business designing glass fly rods with national champion fly caster Jim Chapralis and rodmaker Ken Trisler, but it ended without any rods making it to market. I have a prototype he designed and Ken rolled marked "Chas. Ritz Special" on it -- no rod I've ever casted feels like this one. McFarland had it in his shop for a long time and I think he'd second that opinion. Ritz loved glass and it shows in his rods. He was a fascinating guy.

Love the Big Two Hearted River. I've got a copy of a wonderful story from National Geographic written by Nick Lyons in about 1980 where he goes to find and fish the area Hemingway wrote about. I sent out a bunch of copies to guys over on the bamboo board. Let me know if anyone here wants one and I can get one to you - hard copy or electronic - if you want to read it. PM me.
Rich

Hi John. I’m glad you’ve liked the article! It’s a good one. Yes I was banned for a couple weeks. I can’t decide if I’m just done or to go back with another glass/graphite post. Whatever.
Rich

It is really a shame - there is such a wealth of knowledge on rods of all materials, reels, fishing across the country and World, etc. on that forum. I really just can't understand such a hard line. The other night I got ticked and started deleting all my posts there - got through a bunch but had second thoughts and stopped.