Nick Lyons

Can it be June already? So little of May was spent upon bright water. June has begun, though on a bright note despite high waters.

A group of anglers gathered yesterday to celebrate the life of Ed Van Put. The Wulff Gallery of the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum was filled with relatives and friends, fellows of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild, food and drink. The Guild presented a special shadowbox of flies to Judy Van Put, who the night before was honored by the Museum as a Catskill Legend. The flies were all Ed’s favorite dry fly, the Adams, tied by the Guild during the first Zoom tying session after Ed’s passing in December, and Judy was visibly touched. She had attended that session, though the collecting of the flies and Pete Leitner’s masterful making of the shadowbox was kept secret until yesterday’s celebration.

Judy told us of Ed’s last book, and introduced a special guest, author, publisher and professor Nick Lyons, who had come out of retirement to edit the book and ensure it’s timely publication. In my own sentiments regarding Van Put’s passing, it was Nick Lyons’ story “The Emperor’s New Fly” that summed the gracious ways of this renowned expert angler, conservationist and gentlemen. It was this story that Nick shared with us yesterday in his brief remarks.

Among the small group of favorite authors, those whose works I revisit frequently, Nick Lyons occupies the top shelf. He has been a favorite for some forty years, a gentleman I had always hoped to meet.

Thirty years ago, I sent a manuscript out to inquire about publication. I sent that manuscript to Nick Lyons, a writer I recognized as a kindred spirit. Getting a fly-fishing memoir published is a difficult quest, for they are not the commercial component of publishing for the genre. How to and where to tomes rule the bookshelves of fly shops and sporting booksellers. I was deeply moved by Nick’s kind letter in response to my manuscript. He liked the work, saying it deserved to be published, before telling me that he sadly could not take it on at that time. I still remember his words; that he received some 500 fly-fishing memoir style manuscripts each year “and I read every one”. He explained that, with his existing commitments, and the fact that he could publish only one or two volumes each year, he simply could not take on my “Limestone Meanderings”. Though it was a rejection letter, that letter has meant a great deal to me for all these many years.

It was wonderful to shake Nick’s hand, to say how much his writing has meant to me, and does again each season, and to let him know how special his letter was in encouraging me as a writer. I came hard up against that how to, where to wall when I submitted to a few other publishers in later years. I continued writing my weekly Outdoors column for Chambersburg, Pennsylvania’s “Public Opinion” newspaper for twenty-two years, most often sharing moments in fly fishing and fly tying. After retirement and relocation to the Catskills, I began this blog, still feeling the need to share the magic of angling bright water. Nick Lyons’ influence continues to move me.