This event is co-hosted by the Fly Fishing Show and Southern Trout Magazine (ST), and it will draw the region’s best known fly fishing experts and celebrities to the induction ceremony. The ST “Legends of the Fly” Hall of Fame was created by book author Don Kirk who has worked for years to discover, compile and preserve the story of fly fishing for trout in the South.
This year’s class includes the legendary North Carolina fly fisherman and fly tier, the late Don Howell; host of the popular television show, Fly Rod Chronicles and Cabela’s Fly Fishing Ambassador, Curtis Fleming of West Virginia; Gary Merriman of Atlanta, Georgia, whom many regard as the “Fly Fishing Ambassador of the Peach State”; J. Wayne Fears of Huntsville, Alabama and the author of the first modern era book on Southern Appalachian trout fishing; Soc Clay of Fern Hollow, Kentucky, lifelong fly fisherman, pioneer outdoor writer and at one-time the Poet Laurette of the Bluegrass State; and legendary pre-national park era Great Smoky Mountains fly fisherman and hounds man, the late “Uncle” Mark Cathey of Bryson City, North Carolina.
This year’s inaugural induction will also officially enshrine six “grandfathered” members of the ST “Legends of the Fly” Hall of Fame. These are legendary Ozark fly fisherman and fly tier, Dave Whitlock of Oklahoma; the late Harry Middleton of Birmingham, Alabama who authored On the Spine of Time; the late Ernest Peckinbaugh of Chattanooga, Tennessee who in the early 1900s headed the South’s first commercial trout fly tying business; the late Don Pfitzer of Chattanooga, Tennessee who pioneered the trout fisheries in southern tailwater rivers; the late Charley Elliott of Georgia, the longest serving editor of Outdoor Life Magazine and lifelong promoter of fly fishing for trout in the South; and the late Jim Gaston of Arkansas who pioneered trout fishing on his state’s fabled White River.
The 45-minute induction ceremony will be held at the Atlanta Fly Fishing Show. ST will give away a new Hardy fly rod in a drawing at the conclusion of the event. Sponsors of the event include are Tennessee Valley Authority, Sweetwater Brewing Company, the Tennessee Council of Trout Unlimited, and the Southern Appalachian Museum of Fly Fishing. Southern Trout Magazine will give away a new Hardy fly rod in a drawing at the conclusion of the event.
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