Dwight D Eisenhower – Fly Fisherman

I must admit that I saved the best of the best for last when it comes to fishing presidents. President Eisenhower, Ike for short, was well known for his golfing…but the truth is that he spent as much time fishing as he did golfing. Ike loved fly fishing in particular and in his later years was quite a purists. He was asked once why he loved fly fishing so and he responded by telling the reporter that he wouldn’t use worms anymore because he wanted it to be fair for the fish.

President Eisenhower was fishing with national spin-casting champion Neal Taylor in 1960…as the story goes, Taylor, who had never met Eisenhower was understandably nervous but within a few minutes of fishing with the president said that he felt like he had known him for a long time. As the pair continued to fish, Ike sat down beside the stream and had a troubled look on his face. Taylor waited, and then asked if there was something wrong or possibly the president was feeling ill. Taylor then asked if he could somehow help and it was then that President Eisenhower looked at him and said that not a day goes by that he doesn’t think of the many men that were under his command at Normandy. This was almost twenty years later but the president was still greatly bothered by what had happened on that beach so many years ago. It is absolutely no wonder that they age so quickly!

Humorously…Eisenhower attempted to teach his then VP Nixon how to fly cast and as the story goes the first three casts wound up in a tree and the fourth hooked into Ike’s coat which brought about a succinct end to the lesson. Nixon would later comment that Eisenhower was notably disappointed that he couldn’t get the technique down. The renowned historian Stephen Ambrose commented that “In casting, as in politics…Eisenhower was terribly earnest in his attempts to educate Nixon, with frustrating results in both cases”.

President Eisenhower so loved fly fishing for trout that he would have the stream that flowed through Camp David stocked so that each time he was there for a respite he could simply amble down to the stream, cast and catch a few trout. The locals also figured it out and would wait a day or two and fish below Camp David to catch the left over trout as they moved downstream.

If ever in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania you can stop in at his retirement home which is managed by the National Park Service as a museum and historic site. There are a number of Ike and Mamie’s personal effects that are stored and are being catalogued there at the site. I haven’t been there to see it yet but one of the president’s very own fly rods is housed and can be seen…it is a Pflueger R3780 fiberglass eight foot rod. For a fly fisherman…it is just special to think of one of our president’s eloquently casting down and across in search of a rainbow trout or smallmouth bass.

During a press conference in his second term, Eisenhower stated that “There are three sports that I like all for the same reason; golf, fishing and shooting…because they take you into the fields, they induce you to take at any one time, two to three hours, when you are thinking of the bird, ball or wily trout. Now to my mind this is a very healthful, beneficial kind of thing and I do it whenever I get a chance”. When I read this quote I had to laugh to myself because Harrison (my oldest son) and I have shared through the years our plan for a perfect piece of land. We would have a beautiful 9-hole golf course set-up in a links style with large areas of flowing grass found between the holes. Meandering through the entire property would be a quietly flowing spring creek that would ebb and flow by tee boxes, greens and fairways. Our plan is simple as we would rise early, grab our bird dogs and take a walk through the chest high grass in pursuit of pheasants, quail, chukars or any other type of game-bird…we’d return by mid-morning and throw on our waders and walk the stream for any type of game-fish that would gladly eat any of our various streamer patterns…after bending a few rods we would then grab our golf clubs and have a friendly go at both the course…and each other like we have done so many times before. Nothing too serious but maybe a stroke/match play event (of course I would get a stroke on each hole to make up for the college golfers long drives). As I sit here and think about it…we might as well go ahead and build a super-duper golf cart that has dog boxes and an area for us to store shotguns and fly-rods and be gone all day! I am guessing that President Eisenhower would also agree that our idea is perfect and probably we wouldn’t have to do much arm twisting to get him to join us; sounds like a perfect day afield!

While researching this column I learned a bit about one of my most favorite Eisenhower photos (photo above – courtesy of Wikipedia.com); in the photo it is just before D-Day and then General of the Army Eisenhower is talking with a group of paratroopers from the 101^st airborne division. In the photo it appears that he is giving them a pep talk when in reality one of the soldiers is from Michigan (land of great trout fishing) and the General found out and the discussion quickly turned to…you guessed it, fly fishing. How cool is that? It just goes to prove that those of us who love the outdoors, we’ll talk about our passion with anyone at about anytime.  So…take a lesson from one of our greatest presidents-get up and get going this spring and make your way out into the fields or streams and Enjoy the Great Outdoors.