Who were (are) your childhood flyfishing hero’s? Mine were Homer Circle, Lee Wulff and Robert Traver

And who could forget Gadabout Gaddis?

Sure like I even knew what fly-fishing was.
I don't even think there were heroes before television and that followed REA.
I read Zane Grey, Ernest Hemingway, Ed Zern and H G Tapply and they all fly fished, although I didn't know it at the time. Zern may have influenced me more than the others.

>>edit > Got it! "Ike" was a hero. He fly fished. May even have seen a picture of him with a fly rod. I remember wearing a big ol' "I like "Ike" button to school.

In my youth, my fly fishing pals and myself thought Ernest Schwiebert was, “The Man.”

I was fortunate to attend a seminar and slide show with Schwiebert some 40 years ago. He was kind enough to autograph and write a cordial note on the inside cover of my copy of his book, The Compleat Schwiebert.

When asked why he fished, he replied;

“ I fish because of Beauty.

Everything about our sport (and our cause in terms of TU) is beautiful. Its more than five centuries of manuscript and books and folios are beautiful. Its artifacts of rods and beautifully machined reels are beautiful. Its old wading staffs and split-willow creels, and the delicate artifice of its flies, are beautiful. Dressing such confections of fur, feathers and steel is beautiful, and our worktables are littered with gorgeous scraps of tragopan and golden pheasant and blue chattered and Coq de Leon. The best of sporting art is beautiful. The riverscapes that sustain the fish are beautiful. Our methods of seeking them are beautiful, and we find ourselves enthralled with the quicksilver poetry of the fish.”

I think he summed it up quite eloquently.

He passed in 2005.

Kurt Gowdy. Loved watching him on The American Sportsman. I still remember him floating the Snake river in a big rubber raft and catching big cutts. Also Hemingway, of course.

Mr. Gaddis, Flip Pallot, Lefty Kreh and Jerry McKinnis

When I was truly a kid, Jerry McKinnis.

Later as a young fly fishing adult it was mainly the PA guys, Fox, Marinaro, Harvey, Humphreys, Shenk, et al., of course Schwiebert & Flick.

Happily, I got to meet them all except Jerry.

The first person I read about when I started flyfishing was George Harvey.I learned how to tie flies through some of his stuff.I found out though that tapes on flytying were far better for learning than books.

Lefty Kreh, full stop.

Jerry McKinnis is one I never heard of before this thread (that I recall) Bing says he was on TV for 44 years, I think the only TV fisherman I ever saw was parts of two or three Bill Dance episodes, he was great- made the cast wearing one color shirt and when he set the hook and reeled in had on a different shirt.
Since I was 10 when REA invented electricity and 13 when we got our first TV, I never developed a taste for watching it. Maybe if I had I would have learned about fishing sooner and possibly I would have had heroes. But then I would have wasted a lot of fishing time watching other folks do it. I did know baseball players from the radio, and I was aware of Jim Shoulders and Freckles Brown.

Gaddabout Gaddis and Joe Brooks. Any heroes I had played baseball for the Yankees, but when it came to fishing, I paid attention to those two.

I watched Gadabout Gaddis. The Flying Fisherman, sponsored by Liberty Mutual. Also the show Outdoors with Liberty Mutual? I remember golfer Julius Boros was on that show, he liked to fish as much as play golf. It rotated between different hosts, but all I can remember is Boros. Anybody else remember?

I really liked Jose Wejebe, he was a wonderful man, and did a lot to promote fly fishing. He was passionate about it. A great ambassador for our sport.

Jim Thomas