Why would a successful 30 year banking executive, give it all up and open up a small fly shop on one of Pennsylvania premiere trout streams? Why? Just ask the hundreds of emerging young entrepreneurs who are quitting their jobs, only to open up a brew pub in small towns across America. A Dream. My dream was to convert a 200 year old small streamside limestone spring house into a renown fly shop – the Liltle Lehigh Fly Shop.
Like today’s brew pub entrepreneurs, I was following a dream. Unlike them, the uncertainly and risk never crossed my mind. Rather, it was the call of the stream, the enticing fragrance of the outdoors, the luring draw of the sirens of the trout. More so, it was the opportunity to make my avocation and love of trout fishing, my vocation. I haven’t looked back, and I’ve never regretted trading a business suit for a fly vest.
My book, “Reflections, Observations, and Advice from a Trout Bum,” is dedicated to those thousands of fly fishers who dream my dreams (consciously or unconsciously), and to those that that have unquenchably thirst for new learning in fly fishing. Fly fishing is indeed a lifetime of problem solving and new learning. My audience is those who recognize that in fly fishing, learning and applying never ends – it’s continuous improvement.
My book is not an “I” book. It’s not about me, it’s not about my experiences. Unlike other fly fishing books, instructional and anthologies, it’s about a “journey” through fly fishing and the tidbits of learning that can only be experienced through this journey. Through my own stream successes (and failures), plus my interactions with my friends, the true stars of fly fishing (Larry Borger, Lefty Kreh, Gary LaFontaine, Ernest Schwiebert, Charlie Meck, Barry & Cathy Beck, and many others), I have been able to collect and convey hundreds of years of stream experience and time tested tidbits/techniques to the readers of my book.
Writing a book was never my original intention, fly fishing was. But my years of living the Liltte Lehigh Fly Shop had me brimming with experience, knowledge and skills that I felt responsible to share with the fly fishing world. Hence, “
