Stan Bogdan: Remembering a Fly Fishing Giant

Ironically, I have had brief but notable acquaintances with both the Bogdan family and the reporter Monte Burke. The first year as an owner of Unicoi Outfitters, a friend of ours stopped by the shop in Helen and with him was Stan Bogdan's son Stephen. I felt as if I were in the presence of royalty but Stephen was a very quiet and unassuming man with a pleasant personality whom I enjoyed visiting with. Monte Burke and I met on the Willowemoc River in New York one afternoon as I was rescuing a fishing partner from being swept into a stringer. A nerve wracking experience for me for sure. About a year ago I received an email from Monte telling me that the incident had been indelibly etched on his mind also as he had walked up on us while we were fighting the strong current. He has written a very good article on Stan Bogdan which I thought you would enjoy.


From Monte Burke on the Forbes blog:

Stanley Bogdan–perhaps the finest reelmaker the world of fly-fishing has ever known–passed away last night at the age of 92. I wrote about Stan and his reels in the 4/13/09 issue of Forbes, as part of a cover package about consumer items that would always be recession-proof. His reels were true functional art.

Click here to read the rest of the article