S6, Ep 34: Stories of Lee Wulff with Jack Dennis

Marvin Cash: Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by my friend Jack Dennis. I've been fortunate to get to know and spend time with Jack. He not only makes you a better fisherman, but a better person. On this episode, he generously shares his stories of his friendship with Lee Wulff. Jack is quite the storyteller, and I think you're really going to enjoy this one. It's a great peek inside a special time in American fly fishing.
 
But before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items. If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating review on the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out. 
And we're excited to partner with our friends at Jesse Brown's to bring the Chocklett Factory to Charlotte on May 4th. Blane will be teaching private tying classes, discussing predator and prey, and sharing his favorite rod, reel, and line combos. Stay tuned on social media for more details.
 
Now, on to our interview.

Marvin Cash: Well, Jack, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

Jack Dennis: I like the name.

Marvin Cash: Thanks. I'm looking forward to our conversation. I really enjoy the fact we've, uh, we've sort of become friends over the phone and kind of met through some common fly fishing friends. And, you know, we've kind of kicked around this idea, you know, you have so much knowledge, of the sport and the history of the sport that it'd be kind of interesting to bring you on periodically to kind of talk about fly fishing legends. And we thought we would start with, with Lee Wulff.
 
And, you know, I guess, Jack, the first question is, when did you first meet Lee?

Jack Dennis: Well, it was interesting. I met him kind of by accident. The first time I felt like a really met him was my father, who, never went to any games that I played, never went - the only thing he liked to do was go occasionally to the movies. And all of a sudden he said, look, we're going to go see The Longest Day. And it did very few I went fishing with him and all the things that dads do, but he just, was just, he was a test pilot before the war and then went through a pretty rough time during the war, and he never talked about it, so I got no idea until he died that he had been shot down during D-Day. And, he was able to fly the plane back to England. And so he wanted to see what it was like, as near as I could tell, to see The Longest Day.
 
Now, what that means is they had shorts. They had the cartoons, then they had shorts. They're all different kinds of shorts. But all of a sudden there we were in a stream, Lee Wulff. And it was the short, and it was beautifully filmed. And he had a six foot rod, and he caught the beautiful, probably close to 30 pounds, and he told me, Atlantic salmon, and he released it. Now, you got to realize that was in the fifties. And, you know, releasing fish just wasn't in the - I mean, you caught it unless it was too small.
 
And, I mean, I was just fascinated. I said right then, you know, my father said nothing about it. And he was more interested in the military part, what he flew over to see. So I had that in the back of the mind. This is what I want to do. I don't want to fly airplanes like my father. I mean, I had a chance to go to the Air Academy, and he went to the very first Air Academy, and he pushed me on that vision of Lee Wulff landing at fish.
 
Well, as it turned out, I had to get in the military one way or another with the Vietnam war going on in '66, I'm in college, and I wanted to keep on. It was all "Join the reserves, you'll be able to finish college, and then you can go and do your military service." Well, I joined, and six months later, they called the unit up for duty.
 
And I had made the friendship of Randall Kaufman, who was a young kid that, we kind of, uh, got to know each other. We went in the wind rivers together. Anyway, when I got out of the military, I called him. I said, you know, I tried to, who worked in California. I was an artist, in the military, which was kind of an interesting, fun job instead of going to the jungles of Vietnam. But, I did my duty, then I went into reserve.
 
But I said to Randall, uh, go to Wyoming and see if we can start a business. He was 18 and I was 19. And we went to Jackson Hole in 1967. And the Federation of Fly Fishermen was having one of their first conclaves, their first really big conclave. And we decided, gosh, what do you got to do and learn? And he was in southern California, and that was where the hotbed of these clubs started. It spread through Oregon, actually started in Oregon, but California had the juice.
 
So, all of a sudden, I went, you know, Jackson was a really small town there, this guy stopped me, and it was, Bob Lewis who was given the task of getting the guides for the Federation, because they needed guys to take the celebrities fishing. And I said, look, I don't have a boat. And he said, oh, I got a boat with you. Old military raft. That's what everybody used, or no drip boat. And he said, just show up.
 
And so I told my friends, I'm going to row the boat. So we all went to the big banquet barbecue uh, they had. And the next day was taking fishing, and we got a chance to meet a guy in the shop by the name of Dennis Black, which would be one of the most influential fly fishermen, ever. And nobody knew who he was, and only a few people did. But he changed fly fishing forever because he started, Umpqua Feather Merchants in 1972, which Randall and I helped him. We became friends.
 
Now, okay, what does this tie into Lee Wulff? Well, um, the next day, who do I get? I don't know how they picked it, but I got Lee Wulff and oh, gosh, terrible with, my memory the guy that was the - Arnold Gingrich, who was the publisher of Esquire magazine, which was a huge magazine back then. And here was Lee Wulff. And all they did was needle each other. I thought, why don't they care about the fishing? And they told jokes. They'd needle each other.
Lee wasn't particularly a - he's a pretty serious guy, but he did like Arnold Schumer. And it was pretty sharp, and he just took it. And I thought, man, this guy's a cool dude.
 
You know, being at that time, everything was red and cool, and we loved the Beach Boys. I just hit it off with him. And what I liked is he thought outside of the box, which I did, too. We just hit it off.
 
And he said, look, what are you doing? He says, I don't know. We're going to start a fly tying operation. He said, well, there's no money in that. He says, you're going to be guiding, so. Oh, yes, I'm going to guide. And I told him I just got out of the military, and he loved flying. And, of course, in a flying family, we got into lots of conversations about flying.

And he said, look, I'm going to be doing a show in Los Angeles, and I want you to come and do a little booth and see if you can drum up some business, and I'll get you introduced into the fly fishing world. It was in Los Angeles. And I went and I got a chance - he was building us - he was working for Garcia at the time. The spin fishing world, had the money, and they were trying to get into the fly fishing business, using him as a way to do it.
 
He was designing reels, and he designed a pretty good saltwater reel. I'd never gone saltwater fly fishing. And we set up a trip, got a chance to catch Bonita, and it kind of started right there.
 
From that time, he had just married Joan, and she was absolutely wonderful. And they just kind of took me under their wing, and I kind of thought that sport shows seemed to be the way. There was no fly fishing shows in those days. They would have fly fishing companies at the shows. They were big sports shows with boats and all the stuff.

But, I learned from them about how you do presentations. And, it kind of right there, we just started keeping in touch.
 
Marvin, one of the key things was Curt Gowdy. And, I met Curt out at TU.
 
I have to admit, I was really -I loved American sports. And Curt was in Wyoming. He was like a legendary sports caster. And, you know, being from my part of the world, you couldn't help but love his love to fly fishing. And, I thought, God, he needs to do a show in Jackson. That's where the beauty of Wyoming is. And I said, I'm going to go down there and meet him and talk him into American Sportsman Show.
 
I mean, I was a nobody. I just started tying flies. Had a little shot. Randall had figured that Jackson was too cold. He left after four months, when it got down to 40 below zero, he was back to California. But he ended up in Oregon, meeting up with Dennis Black. And that friendship went on until Dennis died.
 
But what happened there is I had to borrow all the money - it was like $150 to fly to Denver. I didn't know anybody, but I got an invitation to go to the first Colorado Trout Unimited, meeting. We had all the board members except for Bing Crosby there. Curt was there, all the people that started it. And I didn't know anybody in there. You couldn't get near Curt. There were so many people talking to him.
 
There's one guy grabbed me and said, look, you need to meet. Curt Gowdy pushed through the crowd - he was an old friend of Curt - and said, "this is Jack Dennis. He's a guide in Jackson, Wyoming." Jack Dennis, he said, I've never heard of you. He says, "Are you a good guide?" And I said, "I'm a good guide, I grew up on the Snake River." He says, well, you know, I'm thinking about doing American Sportsman Show there. He said, let's talk about.
 
So Ernie Schweibert was given a presentation for sitting down there. And of course, he was a big gun back in those days. It was funny because he said, "look, I've heard enough of him, let's go." And he gathered up his friends and we went to a restaurant where Louis Armstrong was playing. And I was with the president of Frontier and one of the Coors. It was like all the elite Denver were with him. They were supporting Traveler Limited. 
And he sat, he was the only one talking about fishing. And, I mean, I'm just like, way out of my element. The good thing was that I've been used to being around these kind of people because my father, after the war, flew, for Warner Brothers, and he flew for the movie companies and eventually for a baseball company. So I was around people and I knew how to keep my mouth shut, which I don't know about now, but Curt, he just made it all happen. The governor of Wyoming, Stan Hathaway, had called.
 
But the nice thing is, my grandfather, I've spent every summer, literally in my life, uh, my grandfather in Jackson, and he had a big ranch there, and he was well known to the community. Our family had come from Philadelphia in 1916. They didn't live in Jackson, but they had ranches and they were from a well to do family. So my grandfather had a really good reputation, as did my dad, in Jackson. And, um, they got behind it. And we did this show, and it turned out to be, uh, the most viewed and most popular show, in the American Sportsman. It was reran - very few of those shows ever would qualify for a rerun, but it was rerun three times, one after a Super Bowl. And, it was just a pleasure working with Curt.
 
We had, Phil Harris, who at that time is one of the neatest guys, part of the rat pack, and just funny. And it was an amazing time.
 
So where does Lee fit into this? Well, all he would talk about is stories about Lee. And, of course, knowing that, and, you know, we didn't have cell phones in the day, and long distance was really expensive. But Curt, no, he didn't, he was doing well. We'd get on the phone and we'd have the double line and talk with Lee. And I get to see Lee, uh, during the sport shows.
 
And of course our friendship goes - kept going. And when he was doing one of his books, Lee Wulff on Flies, he called me and said, look, would you mind if I take your concept for your book where you're holding the fly in front of your face? I thought, why in the world, the best known fly face in the world would call me to ask permission to do that. I was, like, dumbfounded.
 
And so it actually - we were in Jackson with Curt  -came every year - he became like a second father to me. I went to the funerals, rode into the hearse with the with the body, with Curt. And, you know, but he was originally - Lee had come to us, he called - I never forget this, he called us, and my wife knew where I was fishing, and we were having cocktails at this ranch that nobody could fish. And Curt was a bit of a - Lee and Curt were both - they kind of stretched it, and, like, this lady's rules were that you had to use dry flies. And Curt loved bugs or minnow, and so did Lee. 

And so we were fishing there, and we came in for cocktails. We're sitting there in this lady's house that she had Charlie Russell bronzes, you know, in the room. Look at there, here's a $200,000 bronze next to you and Lee Wulff, and she goes, hey, you got a call from Lee Wulff. And he was telling Curt about, you need instant decision about what fly would you pick if you only had one fly. He said he was doing an article for Outdoor Life, on if he only had one fly. 
And so Curt immediately said, hey, I'll pick the muddler minnow, because I just caught three great big cutthroats on it. And, this lady's listening to it. And I thought, boy, I better not - I couldn't remember whether I had enough guts to say I was using, because she would, when looked at me and she looked at him, and she was on the board of the of the Buffalo Bill museum. And she was in awe of Curt. And, I thought, man, is this guy going to get away with it? 
And so when I got on the phone, she had said nothing to him, and I said, muddler minnow, at that time, it's because she used it as a dry or wet. And I don't know what he said to her, but, he got away with it. 

And so there kind of where there Lee was real interested. And he always believed that man was a competitive animal. And he wrote a wonderful, piece about the one fly after he had a chance to experience it. And that was probably the thing - all of a sudden, and this would have been in the late 80s, we started the one fly. It took a, you know, I mean, that's a whole program on how that started. But. But we. We made it happen. Thanks to Curt.

Curt wanted to have a one fly after hearing that he had gone to the, Lander one shot antelope hunt, which was a contest where you had one shell. And there were teams, and the teams would consist sometimes of astronauts, Roy Rogers, all kinds of people that like to hunt, go out and do this. And it was ran by the Shoshone Indians and a lot of gala to it. And Curt said, you know, why don't we have a one fly like that for fly fishing? 

Well, you got to realize this was like, 1972 or 1973, and, you know, that fly fishing, honestly wasn't that big. It was the starting of the Fly Fisherman magazine, and, and they said, well, you know, I don't care, we're starting it, we're doing it. And we would, we would go out and, and I would hire one of her guides, and we'd go out and have our one fly, which first one was in Dillon, Montana. And we kind of made up - Curt made up the rules, and he would announce it like he was doing the Super bowl, and he could imitate anybody's voice. And he had a pretty good Lee Wulff voice, too. He would go back to Lee says, lee, what do you think of this? And, hey, Howard Cosell. He had a perfect Howard Cossell. And he would mimic him, and people would go down the river and they'd hear that voice, which they knew, and they'd turn around and look at this. And it was great fun. 

And so one of the ones we were doing in white that we do it every year, and I'm going to say this about 1976, and Curt was saying, I'm going to beat you this time. And he said he'd never beat me. And I was competitive. He was competitive. And we went right down, we were getting to the landing, and I'm up by one point. I need to catch a fish over ten inches to beat him. And, we - the guy knew it worked for me that he would make sure I got it. He went down the right hand bank where the takeout was as far as he could go. Nothing. 

And, um, I'm reeling in and going across in the middle of the river. The Snake River doesn't have fish in the middle of the river. They're along the banks. All of a sudden, I have a fish on, trolling a fly. God, he just said, that's it. That's it. He was so mad. He said, look, you've got to do a contest so I can fish against somebody besides you. 
Well, we made it happen. It only took, uh, another ten - to 1986. Now, what did this brings in talking about Lee Wulff during that time, I'm going all over the country to lecture, do programs. I did 40-something years of sports shows and, and TV shows and all kinds of things. And I would visit Lee and Joan up on their place, uh, on the Beaverkill. And it was really wonderful spending the time. And he and I would talk about the one fly and he said, man, I love to fish it. Joan said, so would I. So in 1990, he was set it up. Now, that's four years into it. And Lee was so excited.
He - I remember sitting there with him on the porch and his Piper Cub was on his little landing strip at his house. And he was right bumped up against Mike Rockefeller, who was the son of Lawrence, who really didn't spend much time in Jackson. The Rockefeller family, my grandfather was a banker with, uh, Chase Manhattan and close friends with the Rockefellers. So we got, had a chance to be around them. 

And Lee was saying, you know, talking about, he says, you know, I really would like to take you. I know you can fly, right? I said, yeah, but I'm way out of the license, says, that's all right, I'm going to go get my license and you and I, after the, in the spring, we're going to both fly and we're going to go to my old lodges. And, I just think it'd be a fun thing to do with you. 

And during that time, we started talking about, I'd come up with an idea of a fly, which I call it a parawing.  We had been experimenting. We both thought what a wonderful fly the Wulff pattern is, but they just don't ride low enough on the surface to match mayflies. He had tied the original Wulff, which was a white Wulff, to imitate big mayflies of Canada. And he had changed, actually, the Royal Wulff as we know it really got popularized by Dan Bailey. And his next fly was the Gray Wulff. 

But we started talking about it and I said, you know, I've been working on trying to get a parachute double wing. It would be more stable in the water. It would float close to the surface. Uh, it would be really good in slow moving water. And that's where he said he used to cut the hackle off of a lot of his flies. He would tie the flies on the bank with his hands. He'd have little, little packet with him if, if he wanted to change flies. Lee would never say that he was an accomplished tyer, but he knew how to tie what he needed and he had enough fly time friends. He never lacked for flies. 

So we, we discussed this and he was working on plastic things. Pretty interesting. He was taking plastic and taking like uh, squirrel, stacked squirrel and sticking in the plastic. It would dry, it would be permanent. He'd wrap ground hackle around the post. He'd make a plastic post. And he was working on trying to get a post up that would be a y if you can visual y. Mhm. And I said, the problem is I can't go the threads. Just, you have to use so much thread to do this. You got a build post, then you got to buy the wing. The threads were just too big. The 6-0 thread just wouldn't do it. You can do a ten or twelve, but it took the development of the threads from gibboid down to an 8-0 thread that we could take it smaller. That changed everything. 

Unfortunately, Lee didn't get to see the completed fly, but he knew about it. And he was so excited. I ended up writing several articles for books on the whole process. And it was really funny because when Joan read, she called me on the phone, said, you know, I learned things about Lee that, that I didn't know because he would tell me things about his, his life that he, I don't think he would discuss with, with his wife. He said he was a terrible husband and Joan tamed him and all kinds of interesting thing. 

`But he was a thinker. And as Joan put it, he was a visionary. He was an idealist. He was not a teacher. I'm the teacher. What he did was inspire people. He inspired me to be a guide. He inspired me to get better at flight tying. He inspired me to learn to listen, listen to his stories. And you know, almost 77, they come to me and then they go away. They come to me and go away. But he - I remember him telling me about how he invented the fly vest. And I have this actually on film. I have all kinds of archives of film on tape that were real interesting. 

But I had this one and he's talking about - Curt Gowdy asked him, he said, didn't you invent the fly vest? He says, oh, yeah. He says, it was, it made sense. Pockets to hold your flies and everything. He said, he said, well, how'd you do it? He says, well, I sewed it myself. I went to Macy's and bought a sewing machine. He said the directions were on it. I just did it. It just made sense. And, of course, that vest is in, uh, the museum in the Catskills. 

He was such an inspire. He jumped in the river to prove that you could swim with waders on that if you knew what you were doing, you were safe in waders, if you prepared them right. And he wasn't really - he told me, I wasn't really sure I was right, but I said to preach. And this was it. I mean, he's the only fly fisherman. Sorry, Lefty Kreh, but he was the only fly fisherman who had a whole page in Newsweek magazine of his death. I have a fabulous - The New York Times wrote in one page, The Life of Lee.

And so let's go back because there's so much to this one fly. So we're at the one fly, and this is his first one. And we make sure, gosh, we got to get some, so we make sure it gets filmed. And that course is in the film that I posted on my YouTube channel. And I'm surprised how few people even were interested in it. I go back and forth and wonder how many people are really interested in history. But I look at the group, Classic Fly Fishers, and they've got over 25,000 people that are interested, at least the history of the equipment and the flies and everything.
 
But I often wonder, is this generation going to look back like we did on - I look back on Lee, and my favorite book was a book called Flies by Jay Edson Leonard, which had letters from Dan Bailey and all, every one of the fly tires from the 50s or, from the 20s and before he published it in 1950. And it had fabulous letters about, he would ask them to explain this pattern. If you haven't seen this book, you really need to see it. There's a history fly fishing in his book, Steelhead Fish Lands in the west coast. Names that are embraced, emblazed in fly fishing history right there. 

And I really was lucky to have got to meet him at a speaking engagement. And I asked him which was the best letter that was in there. He said, oh, by far, Bob Carmichael from your Jackson hole. And it just beautifully rewritten.
So we go back to Lee and the One. He's fishing with, Curt Gowdy. How could you not do it? Little as they would know, although they just had great dialogue. We got as much as we could on it. And Chuck Yeager was there, and Lee was so - he was telling me about his 80th birthday, being on a carrier. How he loved flying. 

By the way. We were sitting there in his place and he told me he wanted to fly with the plane, and he was going to get qualified in the spring so we could do this trip. We were sitting there and Joan served us some strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar. And she brought in glasses of wine. 

And we're sitting there looking down there and he says, you know, the greatest things in life start with F. I said, yeah? He said, yeah, food, flying, fishing. And you can figure out what the other one is. Of course, we're keeping this a family program. I'll never forget that. And Joan goes, Lee, you're just - because she heard the last one. She said, you're awful. And he said, what can you do better? And she says, she hugged him and said, no, why did that? Why do you think I married? 

It was us - going back to the one fly. Went through all the things he did. He sat down and talked with Chuck Yeager. And he was his hero. And he had talked about being able to have his birthday on the carrier. And Tom Brokaw was the MC. And he just told me he couldn't have had a better life. 

But at that point, Joan's wife or mother, who lived to a long age like Joan has, had gotten sick. And she said, look, I've got to go back to New Jersey. Lee's going to the fly tackle dealer. And I know you're going. He said, can you take care of Lee's until I get back? And then take him, if I don't get back in time, take him to Denver, to the  tackle show? And so I spent two magical weeks with Lee, fishing and talking that, you know, that I treasured to this day. 

And the funny, those - Mrs. Oliver owned this fabulous spring creek. Actually, uh, she had bought one of my family's properties. She found out that I was from the Mears family, which all of a sudden, I could fish any time on her property. And I brought Lee Wulff. And I remember she's - now you gotta realize she's in her 80s, he's 86 and she's watching him fish, and she said, what a stud he is. 

This gal, probably worth half a million, I mean, $500 million or more, he said. I said, I'm sorry, Emily, but, uh, he's taken. She says, I know, but he must be by a much younger woman, so. 

And by the way, he got away with putting a nymph under his fly. And she didn't say a word. And, I put a nympth under the fly, and one of her workman told her and I got read the riot act for using a nymph on her property. Just depends on who you are. That's the way life is in the world.

Marvin Cash: Indeed. Do you have any other kind of particularly memorable fishing trips you took with Lee? 

Jack Dennis: Uh, you know, we did one on the South Fork. And quite - when I had the chance with Lee and Curt, I was not going to let this go by, because I - Curt said, I just got a feeling this is the last time Lee and I are going to see each other. And they both were anxious to film, and we just went filming. And I remember, you know, I'm filming, I'm watching the whole thing. 

And so a lot of mine was - was, oh, we'll get back to a memorable - sorry, but this age, things come to me and they flash by.
 
Well, anyway, he wanted to catch this one fish, and what he wanted to do, we sat there and the cameraman's going, how much of this do I film? I said, you know, just keep filming. We can always erase it. Thank God for video. And this fish is rising over there. And he refused to change the fly. He turned around to the guide, Gary Wilman, who was probably one of the best fishing guides I've ever had. We called him the predator. He was that kind of guy. 
And Lee tried all these different techniques. Finally, he twitched the fly, and the fish took it. And this was after half an hour. And the guy was just dumbfounded. The guy netted it and he said, yes, says all I had to do was figure it out because you can make fish eat. 

And it was a good point. It was really a good point. And it changed this guide's life. He learned how to be more disciplined. And he said, I would have never done that well the rest of his life. He did that. 

And in the other situation, we're fishing Spring Creek, and Joan's there, and she notices I'm fishing a two weight. Says, you really like those light rods? And I said, Joan, they just land so soft on the water, and casting is everything. And if you're going to spook fish, I learned that from starting out as a kid all by myself, fishing the Hard Water, Everybody said, why don't you go to the Snake? You can catch all the fish you want on that. Why do you want to catch the hard fish? I'd go on my hands and knees, I'd get feeded, but I knew exactly what you had to do. The lighter that you could present the fly - presentation was everything, but in the casting makes the presentation - and I learned about that. And so she was talking about, I was telling her how the three weights would, you can use a three weight anywhere in the world for trout, you know, it's - unless you got to throw great big streamers, but for normal trout fishing. And she says, I really like that. 

And Lee said, look, tell me how you both understand this. Tell me how you cast a two or three weight. I was like, what? I'm going to show you how to cast? He says, yeah, you can always learn. You don't have to be 85 to stop learning. And I told them the attributes of it and they said, well, Lee said, I want your rod. And he finished the rest of the day with my -  I think that was a two way at that time. Two weight Scott. And, that was memorable. 
And then we had the cameras and the interviewing, Joan and Lee about the. And I - you know what the most important thing I think I learned from him was the value of fly fishing in your life, to handle the other things that don't go right. And he talked about his divorces and how fishing may have caused that. He said every time I would have something that upset me, I could go away and fish and come back like it never happened. 

And I think if your listeners there pretty much understand that all it takes is - and Lee, like myself, liked to fish alone. And not that, you know, I do lots of boat fishing, I still row them down the river, but nothing beats getting out on your own. I spent a bunch of time in New Zealand as a consultant. And by the way, Lee really wanted to go to New Zealand. And the one flight kind of helped that way because, you know, he ended up passing away. And I feel somewhat responsible because he was qualifying for our trip, though he had his license, since I didn't have one. Yet, I grew up in a family and knew how to fly. 

And he ended up having - Joan thought he made a mistake, but the instructor lived. What happened when he was coming into land on final, the aorta bust and flooded his cavity, and he died instantly. He fell on the stick in the front of the plane. And, he 6'3" or 6'4" or something like that. And he played basketball for Stanford and baseball for Stanford. He was an incredibly good athlete. And so he still weight enough where the guy could pull it up. And they had a dead stick landing. And luckily, the guy survived and told Joan that he had passed his test, which made her feel good that he didn't make a mistake.

And that was a very touching to when Joan called and I went back several times to help her try to figure out what to do with everything. It was a tough time for her. I'm just - think we have a very special relationship, Joan and I. And it doesn't mean you have to talk all the time. You just feel it. Every time we'd be in a show together, she'd stop and we'd go talk, and she wouldn't let anybody interrupt us until we were done. 

But, she said Lee mellowed a lot in his early age. And I, you know, I remember him from the time I first met him to the time he died. And there was a man in that 20 years, a little over 20 years, that really understood how life was. And, he didn't - he let Curt Gowdy, let a few people into his life. Very similar to Ted Williams. Curt compared the two of them as both legends in their sport, and not because of what they accomplished, but how they felt, and how they gained close to - as close to perfection as you can. 

I remember Ted telling me since, think of baseball. You fail six times out of ten and you're the greatest hitter to ever live. You fail seven out of ten, you're in the major leagues. You fail eight out of ten, you don't play. He says, life is about overcoming failures.

And I think every time you lose a fish, every time you learn something, and then eventually, you don't lose fish. 
And, you know, one thing, Marvin, that I see nowadays, and I don't know, Lee would, how he would take it, you know, he would hold up the Atlantic salmon and always release them. In the early days of the camp, they would keep the Brook Trout, because they were so good eating in the lakes of Canada. 

You know, his gift to the world, you know, his famous statement, is game fish is too valuable to catch only once. And there's all kinds of different quotes from him that really, truly - the father of catch and release. And I have one of the articles that he did for Fly Rod and Reel. He wrote for them when they first came out about - he and a friend of mine both wrote articles together on the value of catch and release. And, um, it had profound effect. 

And I think I look, uh, now, and I think what really happened with Lee is he gave us the energy to make the wind fly work. He wrote the article giving it praise, and it wasn't popular. I got a lot of hate letters, about I was going to ruin fly fishing. It would become like golf where you paid for it. 

And I just ended up coaching the world fly fishing team and being a part of it, just so I could learn from a real contest. And they don't kill fish, and they have very strict regulations. You know, there's a competitive edge. But so far in the US, what I want is the wonder of these contests to raise money. We've raised over $20 million in stream improvement projects, all stream improvement projects. And you can go to the streams and see what the work has done. 
But what we've done is inspired other clubs. I would say there's close to 200 contests throughout here and Canada, and none of them have cash prizes. They're there for fun. And I think I look back on that and I wish more people would understand that. And it's about the flies. My God, what would you ever - the Chernobyl came from the guides of the Green River. I was there when it was designed and made, and it was a fly that was pounded. And then you had the double bunny, and then you had the church tarantula. You had a whole series of flies that are in the fly fishermen's repertoire.

And so there's so many advantages to what this has been, to highlight flies and highlight becoming a better fisherman. And it's fun if you get people taking it. I don't. I never even. I couldn't tell you who even won last year or who won, because I don't care. I don't care who wins. Just are, uh, they having a good time? We raising a lot of money with our banquet? I think it was about 600,000 last year. And I sit back and look at all these people and what fun they're having in fly fishing. 

When Curt and I envisioned just a simple little contest, has become honored now by the American Museum of Fly Fishing. We're way receiving their Heritage Award on April 18, we get a preliminary award where we go to the New York Anglers Club and to their American Fly Fishing Museum fundraiser. And we do this wonderful film. It's on the IFA, or film tour, called tension. And we've been allowed to show that at the event. So it's really fun to see getting the recognition. And, um, you can't be any prouder. I feel like I've done about everything I could to try to - I've touched a lot of things, Marvin. It's been a wonderful float. 

Marvin Cash: Yeah, and it's amazing too because I've been uh, we were talking before we started recording. Jack has been putting some of his older, more original content on YouTube.

Jack Dennis: Yeah, it uh, you know, I just, I got into it too late. I didn't really understand. I didn't, you know, we were moving to North Carolina, and ended up having to start over after went up to 5000. Didn't understand. You know YouTube had kind of led all the people to believe that, especially in the fly fishing film that they monitor what was copyrighted and not. And everybody threw in whatever they could find, you know, from old, old stuff. And all of a sudden, you know, you know, DVD market had fell and all this stuff was out there. Everybody's putting my stuff on. 
I didn't, I'll tell you, I couldn't afford to copyright, it cost so much and the market was so small. I mean you had a best seller at 5000 DVDs. Although I did the Cabela's and the uh. And they sold, I mean we sold 50,000 or more, Learning to Fly Fish. And I know he's old couple, I think the whole time was about 200,000. But you know, we also made them priced reasonably and you know, to pay for DVD for $30.

Just, I mean, what should happen is YouTube has made it really good now, but it takes a lot of time and you know, I'm trying. People find I saved a bunch of live flight time from seminars that I was the producer of the Fly Time Theater. And, you know, I show those. I've got a lot of stuff back there. It's just how much time do I devote to it for so little return other than the satisfaction at this aids that somebody liked it. 

Marvin Cash: And I'll drop a link to your channel in the show notes, jack, so people can check it out. And I guess before I let you go, do you have, you know, maybe one thing you can share about Lee that, you know, maybe folks generally don't know that. Got to spend some time with him or kind of, you know, remember his public life?

Jack Dennis: Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I watched him when he was older years when he was pushing these flexible flies at the sports shows. And I thought to myself, God, here Lee is at this age pushing there in a booth where he should be, you know, with a room talking about his life and everything. But he was trying to promote, you know, Wulff product. Joan really was the one. Joan had her fly casting school, which is still going and she's still a part of. And. But they had the fly line. 

And let me tell you, his taper, his triangle taper has been matched and copied. He should have trademarked it. But, you know, like a lot of things we should have done, you know, I look back a hundred times, says, boy, I should have done this or that. 

But Lee was, you know, I thought, man, I'm not gonna. I don't want to get to that. I don't want to be in a booth promoting something in my 80s. You know, I thought about, well, the only thing I could really do is go talk about creative sports show, and they don't seem to be interested in it. 

I mean, I've never really. I've done it. I ran a sports show in Salt Lake City, uh, a fly fishing show with another guy and I, for about seven years. Then the. And after the pandemic, I moved, and it went on to other people. But I know how hard it is to produce that. But I just saw the mood, that nobody seemed to care about it. And yet, you know, I find a few people that are still interested. 

But there was a time, I think, how important. I had the picture of Lee tying a 28 - I got it in my drawer right here - a 28 gray hackle peacock. And, in his hands. And I'm looking at it. Ivan Chouinard is looking at it. I invited Ivan. I thought he could learn a lot from Lee. I've known Ivan since he was a climber in the Tetons. He, was living in his car when he first got there. And I was a young guy moving the climbers back and forth after hours. Nobody wanted to stay there because the climbers time frame was their own. And so I just go over there, park the boat and fish. And Ivan would always ask me what I was doing. He caught the fishing bug. And we've gone through our lives with the - watching Ivan grow into what he is today. 

But he was so impressed. So he tied one for me, and he tied one for Ivan. And I'm sure he has that. But his ability - Oh, boy, it's just, you know, I wish I could, you know, the way to put in the man is a deep thinker who's always thinking and. And his personality went to the person that he was. He would show what he wanted to, to the person asking the question. He had great respect than anybody that had risen in his field. And he would give them more time or anybody that's coming up. My guides loved it. 

He went out with. During that two weeks, he went out more with the guides. I was wrapping up one fly during that time, and the guide just loved him. And he would. He would give them a fly. And, I mean, each one of those guides had the flies. And I think after he. He died, Joan sent me a fly, which is to stay in my family. And it was his fly from the book, The Art of the Fly. And he said, this was Lee's most treasured fly. So I always felt that he kind of passed. 
Oh, and he loved my royal humpy. Oh, geez. He just loved it. He loved the hump. He couldn't see it. He was a very visible type of guy. He liked his dry flies so he could see him. That's why he put the - we started out, of course, I don't know how many people know, but he started out with bucktail. And Lee had this wonderful friendship with Dan Bailey. And Dan Bailey said, look, you got the wrong material. And what I just don't know, you start off with Lee. But Dan convinced him, you know, that he could show him how. 

And he took care of Lee. I mean, they didn't have any kind of program like they have now. That was developed by, Umqua, where you got paid for a pattern. And man, I can't imagine, but he never had to worry about anything. Dan Bailey just took wonderful care, and I'm sure at the end of each year, he sent him a check. 

But he's the one that really developed the Wulff pattern into what they are, changing them over to what they call those dates Kiptail. Nobody wanted to call it a castail. Impala tale. That was always the best one, impala like, you know. And, uh. But he - what, you know, it's amazing what you can gather from people. He was simple. He didn't want to. I mean, he was more interested in the approach and fly fishing than what the fly was. He was interested in figuring out the situation. He liked to go one on one with the fish. 

I was able to film his last fish he caught in Wyoming. I thought for a long time was the last fish he ever caught. But he did do a piece just like three months before he died. So when he was in the one fly, that was about four years or four months, I mean, before he died in February. But he did a deal on his home river. It's wonderful, but you could tell he had lost his energy since the windfall. It's just like you look at two different people for whatever time he, you could just see that, the difference in the two people in a few months. But he did it.

He only caught some fish, but it was real fishing adventure when we had him. And we just let him go out on his own, and we filmed it, and we just watched everything. And I got this all on film. And eventually I will get to where we put it on YouTube. I just - he gets - Curt interviewed him about his life, and it was very, I don't know how to put the word, but not melodramatic, but sad in some ways, the way he viewed himself. 

He viewed Curt as a much bigger, you're famous and everything. You're better at your job than I was. And Curt's trying to tell him, no, you're not. You rose to the top of the field. But, you know, I could see the reluctance. And Lee said, you know, you just said, there is no such thing as a professional fly fishermen. They can't make any money. He says, luckily, I had a career in advertising, and they had people that were very good to me. He said, I couldn't have lived on this. 
And I think he had a lot of the skepticism about where fly fishing was going to go. And it has gotten bigger. And I'm sure if you look at all the rod companies are all owned by, except for St. Croix, they're owned by well to do people that can afford to be in it. 

You look at Orvis, the Orvis family, and the rod guarantees. I always saw it when they put those lifetime warranties that was going to drive up the price, and it made the companies virtually unsellable. And, you know, the same people pretty much still own it. Thomas and Thomas went through several owners and everything. But, it's kind of where things are. And I see Lee saw that. And he talked, you know.

And, I looked at his boxers, and I have to laugh because, three of the best fishermen I know have old boxers, and they just throw all the flies in. Now, Randall coffin is the most organized rider I've ever been around. And I open up his fly boxes like, hey, get out of catters. He goes through about three boxes to find it. It's not even separated out. And I realized, you know, I'm that way, too. But I have to do it, I can't to make it look good because if people see that, they look at me and say, what are you doing? 

But Lee was that way too. He wasn't, he wasn't super organized, except there's thinking. I know. Here's the thing. He was the old, as Joan said, he was the ultimate predator, especially in the ocean fishing. And he says, look, ocean fishing is easy. You just got to find, once you find them, they're not hard to catch, but you got to find them and that's hard. 
And I asked him what kind of fishing you like the best? This is a great answer. He said, whatever I'm fishing for, it's the best right then. And I thought, man, is that ever true? Wherever I'm at, whether it's bone fishing or in South America or wherever in New Zealand, especially New Zealand was where I learned the most about fly fishing. In Australia, wherever, it's great. And one of the things he said, you can build any number of golf courses golf will get, but you can't build new trout streams. And the only thing we've got to protect them is catch and release. That's on this tape. 

And that just really hit. And that made me, now that was filmed in 1990, he died in 91. And that has stuck with me and stuck with me when we turned the one fly into an organization to rebuild streams. that hit. I can tell you right now, fishing is better on the Snake River and pretty much all the rivers I fish than when I was a guide in the 60s. Fishing is better. Better on the Green, is better - we go on South Fork, Lake River. I can't speak for Montana because I didn't fish it when I was really young. Yellowstone is better. The Yellowstone Lake's coming back with great big cut throats that can survive the, uh, Mackinaw, they learn to evolve into big fish.
 
Do believe an eleven pound cutthroat caught last year on a fly, in Yellowstone lake. The lake the Mackinaw ruined.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, it's uh, yeah, it's one of my favorite places to fish. I love fishing the Fire Hole.

Jack Dennis: Yeah. But think of Yellowstone Lake. There were hardly any fish left on the river and they evolved. They, of course, they reduced the Mackinaw population, which helped, but the spawning is limited, but it'll come back. Nature has a way of doing, if we can. And the nice thing about Yellowstone, just the way it is, but you know, the big problem I see, and the Fire Hole hasn't changed one darn bit. You have a little bit of the rivers do have a little bit of problem, with the buffalo. There's far more buffalo than historically there, and they have beaten down the bank, but, you know, that's part of nature. You know, the fish will survive. No stream improvement in the National Park.

Marvin Cash: It's, ah, interesting, though. I know the stream banks, uh, have recovered since they reintroduced the wolves, too. That's kind of helped kind of move the elk and the bison kind of off a little bit.

Jack Dennis: Boy, I don't even want to get into that. There's some hard feelings on that. That's one thing in Jackson. And I've learned my, my wife was an ER nurse there, and she talked to me of bear incidents. I just. It is so much like everything, a political move. I just don't really have an opinion, you know, on it, other than there's too many buffalo and Yellowstone Park. But, you know, the tourists like them. 

The park tries to do the best they can with it, but there is negative effects, you know, there's none of it. None of those streams flowing into the Yellowstone can reproduce fish like they used to because they've been all trampled down. And the buffalo wouldn't have been there for white man hasn't have brought them in there. So, you know, where do you? 

But, you know, I, you know, getting back with Lee is that he saw like a lot of people don't remember, you know, trout fishing was really threatened in the 1890s in New York. They had pretty much killed all the fish that ran up into the rivers. And, you know, so it came real - you know, their answer was to have a private club redo the streams, you know, and monitor the fishing. And Lee was a product of that, understanding that - not only catch and release, but trying to undo the damage that was done in the sake of ignorance.

How much do you value, fly fishing? What do you put as a value when you look at the people that have done it? From the Bush family, really, really got to be interested in fly fishing. To Dick Cheney, who would rather do anything - I asked him what would his last trip be if you only had one trip? He says, I got it, go to Canada on a steelhead scream all by myself. I want it snowing. And I don't care if I catch a fish. That's my last trip of my life. He says, now you got to do your last trip of life. And that was going out at 6:30 at night and spending all night fishing a crane fly hatch. That was my last trip. Both said we had to do our last trip before we knew we were going to die. 

And that was kind of Lee. I mean, the best time when talking with Lee was when we were eating lunch. And there'd be Curt and I, and they'd start talking about their old days, filming and laughing. And, he told one story, this is a good one. They were filming in Canada, and he had this idea of how he was going to do this segment, something he wanted to have. And during the American Sportsman, they would let independent people, Curt would become the producer, Lee become the producer. And they would, you know, they would set it up, hire the cameramans and deliver the final product to ABC to be on the show. 
And so they were filming. He said, what I want is to have you, Curt, with the rod underneath your hand, flies out in the water and you're lighting a cigar. Well, back then, that was okay. And this was during the time of the day when there was no fishing, middle of the day. 

And so what he, what Lee would do, and he always looked to cut money. Curt didn't like. Kirk didn't cut. He just paid the best to get the best photographers. But Lee was a cheapskate. And he would hire French Canadian cameraman, which he could get for very cheap. Now, realize you're using 35 mm film, which is when edited - when edited back then was $1,000 a minute. So if you had a 23 minutes show just in that fee is going to be $46,000. That's a lot of money back then. And so you didn't waste it. 

So Lee's idea was to get a big daredevil without the hook on it, cast it out, and get the big Brook Trout to chase it in. And they would take flies on the surface real easily. So we'd do that. The fish would come in and set it up. The fish wouldn't take the fly. It just went on and on. And Lee was very devoted on doing this. He'd look up and see the camera crew, and they're standing there, you know, they're - what they, what they needed to do is once they brought the daredevil in, they would then hit the camera and film that. Then you'd build it afterwards. 
And how you did the old shows with film is you caught the fish, then you acted out everything before it. Now, of course, you can film everything because video doesn't cost anything. So he's doing that, doing that. Finally, finally, the fish takes a fly. Curt throws a rod in the air, and cigar goes everywhere he goes, oh, we got it! I've been trying for years to get that. He turns around, and there's no cameraman there. He yells, did you get it? There's one guy saying, get what? 

Lee went right up there and just decked the guy. So that was another part of Lee, he had a quick temper. You got to take the good with the bad. Curt always said, this is how you evaluate a friend, somebody you want to have a friendship with. He says it's like a sports game. You add up all the good things, and you got your score. Then you add up all the bad things, and you got your score. The good things outweigh the bad things. You got a friend.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that's a that's a novel concept in this day and age, right?

Jack Dennis: Yeah. That's the way Curt. Curt really helped me understand what it was to keep - to stay in your lane. You know, the saddest part of all of these guys, and I know what they mean now that I'm 77, is that nobody remembers you after a time when you're in the middle of the battle and everybody knows you. Then all of a sudden, you start on - I look at life like an airplane. You take off - because my family involved aviation - you take off, and. And I got to be able to fly Boeing jets and the simulators and all kinds of planes on my adventures. But not wanting to do it as a profession - but you take off that you're doing. You work your way through school, you're doing the college, you're doing everything. All of a sudden, you get married, you have kids, and the plane is in what we call cruisematic going down, you back off the power, and you enjoy the ride. When you get down, all of a sudden, you're going to have to land. Got to bring back the power more, and you start to descend. And as you descend, it's each part of your life. Then all of a sudden, you are on final. Out comes the gear, and you hope you make a nice off landing, die in bed. 
Anywhere along that time, that plane can crash. But that was my idea how life was. And, you know, everybody said, live every day like you last. I mean, that's great. I just live every day like it's a day and try to do as many things with friends as you can. And that's why people ask, why do you still row the river at almost 77? I said, because that's what you do.

And if I can do it, I'm going to do it as long as I can, because I get to see beautiful skies and be away from people. Many times I float down and never see a person all day. Think about that. Never see a human all day and you're in a boat. Can't beat it.

Marvin Cash: It's certainly one of the reasons why I like fishing the Rocky Mountain West, although it's gotten a little harder and harder to find that solitude. But I always think, you know, floating in Montana that, you know, when you kind of get out a little bit and you don't see anybody, that you're literally looking at the landscape exactly the way it was when Lewis and Clark came through.

Jack Dennis: Well, that's what I love about Yellowstone. When you go to Yellowstone, that was the way it was all the way back. Forget the roads to it. Just look out there where there's no roads or trails and say, that's the way it was. And of course the wilderness areas. But you have to hike into the older you get. You just can't do that. You know, you can't do that. 

So what I like is you just learn to be, creative. The guides have to be there. My grandson's a guide at this, in the shop where I guide - where he guides. I mean, I don't get - so the guides and they have to go out at 7:30 and I expect it to be back at 5:30 because all the restaurants close at 9:00 except for a brew pub closes at 10. So you go out at 10 or 11 and you fish the dark and you don't see anybody. You have to be inventive to not see people. 

Now that may not happen on the Madison or something like that because. You'll run into privates. But people want to be off the river. They don't. They're afraid of the dark. They don't feel comfortable rolling it and they don't really - the rivers along some of them are 24 miles stretch in one day. You have a motor, but if it gets too low, you don't have the motor. You know, it's being inventive, I think. You know, that's what Lee would say. That he, he would just figure a way so he could be alone. It meant getting on private property, he would go on private property. I don't like the deal with private property. I get on about any private property, but it comes with a price. You can the call up. I need you to come out and give my buddy a casting lesson or taking fishing. It always happened when it was on your daughter's birthday. 

And so I learned there's plenty of water out there. And it just private land came with there. You know, if you did it, you're gonna. And then that's rightly so. Nothing wrong with that. Just something I don't particularly want to do. 
So I think it's wonderful, you know, Lee has gotten the notoriety, you know, of being such an adventurer. But you know, you think about it right now, what is ability now, which is so wonderful for the countries, is that we have the fisherman that has the money to travel to Argentina and all over the world now, all these places, and bring them on, bring money, give people jobs. 

When I started helping on the travel, there were just so few people. We were working in New Zealand, on trying to figure out how I only had a 38% return turn rate. And I got hired by the government near New Zealand and their tourist commission in frontiers to try to figure out why. Well, it was really simple. They were bringing people from Alaska that were used to catching, you know, 50 fish a day, and they just didn't have the skill level. So what we did is we brought over intricate plan over ten years of bringing five shop owners for free over there so they could see how difficult the fishing was. And so when they booked a person, they knew they were sending them - they were qualified and they targeted places like Pennsylvania and California and Colorado, where they had conditions that were similar to New Zealand. 

And it was just wonderful to watch that go from one lodge. When I started, there was one lodge, it really wasn't a lodge called Hookah Lodge. And then build up to where the government helped build lodges up to about six. And now I think there's over 60. And the fishing has remained really good. And it's mainly because, you know, the enlightened fly fishermen there, they're locals, they have to be good to catch fish. And they have ingrained the catch and release. It has become a very important industry for small country of New Zealand. 

And I see that all around the world. I see people - I get my texts from my friends in Tasmania, I work with them and they're all just saying, boy, we got to get more catch and release, we got to, we got to look at the water levels. They're doing all the stuff that we're doing and now they got a problem. Mainland Australia is protecting the natives, the conservation mining people want the trout out of Australia. Yeah, that's a battle when you consider about every prime minister of Australia's done fly fishing.

Marvin Cash: Yeah, that's a, uh, it's an interesting thing. I mean, the whole, you know, native wild thing is an interesting discussion. And, you know, Jack, I appreciate you spending so much time and, you know, sharing a perspective on Lee that, you know, most people don't have and, you know, certainly look forward to you coming back and, uh, sharing some more stories with us.

Jack Dennis: Whatever you want to do it. And I'm happy to talk about techniques and stuff too that just the things I've learned out of boats and things. Whatever you want, you just try to be relevant.

Marvin Cash: I appreciate that.

Jack Dennis: I have a lot more stories.

Marvin Cash: Oh, I know. I know you do. I'm excited to record them and bring them to the listeners. 
Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. And don't forget to check out the Chocklett Factory on May 4 at Jesse Brown's Outdoors. 
Tight lines, everybody.