Lefty Kreh, perhaps the most famous fly fisherman of them all, died at age 93 of congestive heart failure last month at home in Maryland.
Here's how Mike Klingaman of the Baltimore Sun began his obituary of Kreh: "He fished with U.S. presidents, CEOs and common folks, cast his line on every continent but Antarctica, and cranked out 32 books revered by anglers all over the globe. To the end, Bernard Victor 'Lefty' Kreh was recruiting new sportsmen, reeling them in as he did the 126 species of fish that he landed in his lifetime from the Monocacy River to the Amazon watershed. ... World-renowned and a member of three fishing halls of fame, Kreh baited hooks with Presidents Carter and George H.W. Bush, writer Ernest Hemingway, golfer Jack Nicklaus and baseball player Ted Williams. He fished for marlin in Cuba with Fidel Castro and, at 90, fished in the Bahamas with an eclectic bunch, including newsman Tom Brokaw, actor Michael Keaton and rock star Huey Lewis."
Kreh had at least one tie to Arkansas. He became the mentor of Adam Maris, the president of Spring Valley Anglers Rod & Gun Club along Spavinaw Creek in Benton County. I wrote about Maris and his exclusive operation in Wednesday's column. My mental image of trout fishing in Arkansas is of people in jon boats in the cold waters below U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dams. Spring-fed Spavinaw Creek, with well-equipped fly fishermen wading the stream, is more like what one would see in Colorado, Idaho or Wyoming. Kreh enjoyed his visits.
"As a fly fisherman, I grew up reading about and watching videos of Lefty Kreh because he was the Babe Ruth of fly fishing," Maris says. "I never dreamed I'd get to meet him, much less develop a wonderful friendship with him. Rick Pope, the founder of Temple Fork fly rods, introduced us in 2006 when I was just starting Spring Valley Anglers. He told me that Lefty and I would get along and that Lefty would love to get to know me. Rick gave me Lefty's phone number and told me to call him. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I remember dialing the phone and wondering who was going to answer the other line. When Lefty answered, I actually thought about hanging up because I was so nervous."
Kreh went on to become what Maris describes as "almost like another grandfather." In 2013, Kreh came to Spring Valley for Maris' wedding to a Bentonville optometrist.
"He could tell I was nervous," Maris says. "To break the ice, he pulled me aside and said Vanessa is wonderful but for an eye doctor she must not see very well. He added: 'Remember, Adam, love is grand, but divorce is 500 grand.' Shortly after our wedding, I received a handwritten letter from Lefty. His letters were always written on his blue stationery. He mentioned how much fun he had and how much he enjoyed spending time with Vanessa and me. He closed the letter stating that he had only been to three weddings in his entire life--his own, his daughter's and ours. I was shocked. It certainly made me realize how special our relationship was and how thankful I was to call him a friend."
Highly respected outdoors writer Ray Sasser of The Dallas Morning News, who died Feb. 21 at age 69 following an eight-year battle with lymphoma, came to Spavinaw Creek in the fall of 2010 and began his story this way: "The Ozark plateau's ancient trees filtered October light from the azure sky. In the last three summers, I've cast for trout in Colorado and Wyoming but never in a prettier setting than this unlikely blue-ribbon stream called Spavinaw Creek, about 330 miles northeast of downtown Dallas. Fly-fishing legend Lefty Kreh could double-haul a cast halfway to the Oklahoma border from here. In fact, Lefty has stood in this same spot, no doubt watching a strike indicator drift above tiny, suspended flies meant to tempt rainbow or brown trout. I was thinking about Lefty or maybe examining the picturesque limestone cliff towering above the opposite bank when my fishing guide woke me from the daydream."
Just as this state's baseball enthusiasts never realized until recently that Babe Ruth once spent part of each spring in Hot Springs, few Arkansas fishermen know that "the Babe Ruth of fly fishing" enjoyed catching trout on a small Arkansas stream. Sasser ended that 2010 story by quoting Jerry Parkhurst, who once owned a fly shop in Tulsa and helped people plan fishing excursions around the world. Parkhurst said that "most of them didn't believe me when I said they would probably catch a bigger trout by fishing just 90 minutes from Tulsa."
"If I were pressed to describe him, he was a combination of Santa Claus and Yoda," Maris says of Kreh. "Lefty had a sense of humor, and you could always tell when he delivered the punch line of his jokes because he would pause, clear his throat and make a little snort. This was almost as funny as his jokes. ... Lefty had the strangest food preferences. He didn't eat anything with colors--no salsa, vegetables, salads. He would get a steak and say 'meat and heat' with a baked potato and wheat bread. He told me to always have a large jar of peanut butter just in case I got stranded or the food at the lodge was no good, which meant they served food with too many colors."
"Give him some cheese and Fig Newtons and a quiet place to fish, and Kreh was in heaven," Klingaman wrote. Kreh traveled the world, but one of his favorite spots remained a tiny creek in the far northwest corner of Arkansas.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 04/07/2018