Joe Brooks
Posted by:
Bill Beall
(---.always-online.wispnet.net)
Date: July 18, 2008 08:38AM
 This is posted at the suggestion of Mr. Kirkman. It contains the substance of an email exchange between us. My apologies in advance for any errors introduced by my admittedly shaky memory.
Hi Tom, I've been thinking about sending this to you since the subject come up on the RBO. I've been a little troubled about the possibility that some in rodbuilding, presumably fishermen, don't know about Joe Brooks, one of the Twentieth Century's giants in our sport. Your idea to contact Lefty Kreh for info on Joe is an excellent one. I'd bet that Lefty will say that Joe made his career possible. I doubt that anyone alive knows more about Joe Brooks than Lefty Kreh. I started fly fishing in 1948 at the age of 10, so I grew up reading and learning from some of the greats in the sport, e.g. Wulff, Bergman, Fox, Marinaro, McClane, Schwiebert, et al. An argument could be made that Brooks towered over them all. Well known through his books and magazine work as an expert on trout and salmon, he was widely regarded as the father of saltwater fly fishing. He was probably the first to target and catch a bonefish on a fly. He was certainly the first to write of it and through his writings he almost single-handedly created the fly fishing industry of the Florida Keys (some Keys locals might disagree, but they would acknowledge Brooks' influence.)
A few of my recollections from Joe's and Lefty's writings:
Joe was Lefty's mentor. He took Lefty to Tochterman's Tackle in Baltimore to buy Lefty's first fly rod and taught him to flycast. He helped Lefty get started as an outdoor writer.
Joe was outdoor editor of the Miami Herald and director of the Metro Miami Fishing Tournament for many years. He was succeeded in this position by Lefty. Joe succeeded Ray Bergman as fishing editor of Outdoor Life magazine in 1967 and continued in that post until his death.
Joe was one of the founders of the Brotherhood of the Jungle Cock on Big Hunting Creek, Thurmont, MD. He generously donated his time as an instructor for this organization throughout his life, introducing inner city kids to the wonders of fly fishing for trout, casting, fly tying and streamcraft. Many have written about Brooks' warm and generous nature. He was a man I wish I had known.
Joe Brooks died of a heart attack in 1972 while wading the Big Hole River in Montana for trout. He was in his early sixties.
I feel a little sadness that such an important person in our sport should be poorly remembered only 36 years after his death. I doubt that in 1970 there was a fly fisher anywhere in the world who did not know who Joe Brooks was.
Regards, Bill Beall
