Continuing my tribute to John Whitehead, the man who taught me the joy of fly fishing – 

After learning the very most basic casting techniques, John patiently went with me to the Angler’s Inn, a venerable Salt Lake City landmark fishing store, with a fairly compact fly fishing department at that time. 

My meager graduate school budget wouldn’t allow much – I can’t recall great detail, but my first rig was a glass Cortland rod sold in a package with a prehistoric reel and the most basic of Cortland’s double taper floating lines – all for well under $100.   The rod as you can imagine was labeled a “fast action rod” and you probably could have trained upcoming track and field athletes to pole vault with it.   

John was appropriately congratulatory and also promptly steered me to purchase a copy of the paperback Curtis Creek Manifesto, a tongue in cheek but very useful beginners guide to fly fishing.  If you don’t have a copy, you must pick on up for your library –I still have mine.    John then patiently showed me how to read water on some of the small streams within a couple of hours of SaltLake.  

Time spent wandering the smaller waters around the Wasatch with John was invaluable – he could see things in and about the water that took me years to understand.   He was also the model of patience – working a deep outside bend or riffle for hours while I wandered all over the adjoining two miles of stream, no doubt putting down fish with my flailing and slip and fall wading style.  More to follow in a later post - Mark 

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