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Bud Lilly | |
---|---|
Born | Walen Francis Lilly II August 13, 1925 |
Died | January 4, 2017 |
Alma mater | Montana State University, bachelor's degree in Applied Science; University of Montana, master's degree in education (1951) |
Occupation | Fly fisherman |
Known for | Fly fishing guide and owner of "The Trout Shop" in West Yellowstone |
Bud Lilly (1925-2017) was the owner of the Trout Shop in West Yellowstone, Montana as well as an accomplished baseball player, fly fishing guide, and conservationist.
Walen Francis “Bud” Lilly II was born on August 13, 1925, in Manhattan, Montana. [1] to Violet Collins, a hotelier, [2] and Walen Lilly, a barber. [3] Bud graduated from Manhattan High School in 1942. [4] After some time serving in the United States Armed Forces, he enrolled in Montana State University in Bozeman in 1946 and earned a Bachelor's degree in applied science. [5] In 1951, Lilly earned his Master's degree in education from the University of Montana in Missoula. [4] He then became a public school math and science [6] teacher in Bozeman and Deer Lodge [4] until his retirement in 1970. [3] He briefly also worked as a teacher in Scottsdale, Arizona. [1]
Bud's father, Bud Sr., was a fan of baseball and taught Bud to play. At age five, Bud received his first bat and glove, and he began playing in sandlot games. At age twelve, Bud began playing organized baseball, [4] playing in both American Legion and town-team baseball. [6] He rapidly gained more experience. At fourteen, he became the youngest player on the Gallatin Valley Men's Team, an independent baseball team whose players ranged in age from fourteen to fifty. Bud played second base. [4]
While in the Gallatin Valley Men's Team, Lilly played in an exhibition game against “a Negro League traveling team," [6] including Satchel Paige, a pitcher who was later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and became the oldest rookie in Major League baseball. [7] Lilly managed to get a hit on a pitch from the famed player and make it to first base, but got out when he attempted to steal second. [6]
In 1940, two men from the Cincinnati Reds scouted the team. He was not given an offer at the time. In 1942, the men returned to watch Bud play again. They offered him a minor-league contract [8] to play with the Cincinnati Reds farm team, the Salt Lake City Bees. [9] Instead, with World War II ravaging the country, Bud joined the military. [4]
In 1942, Lilly joined the U.S. Armed Forces and travelled to Butte, Montana to train in the V-12 program for U.S. Navy Officers. [4] After two years in the program, Lilly received his commission and “reported to St. John’s Cathedral in New York”. [4] He then journeyed to Bainbridge, MD to go through Navy boot camp.
Lilly trained in Miami from May–July 1945 on destroyers, sub-chasers, and PT boats. Following this training, he shipped out to Italy on the way to invade Japan with the U.S. Forces. [4] During his service, Bud Lilly was assigned to the USS General R.M. Blatchford. He visited Hiroshima, Japan after its bombing by U.S. forces. [1] In 1946, Lilly left the military and returned to Montana to continue his education. [10]
During his time as a public school teacher, Lilly began working another job in West Yellowstone and washed cars for extra cash. [5]
In 1961, Lilly purchased a “trout fishing tackle store” in West Yellowstone that became a great success. The shop gathered information about local fishing conditions, provided a space for fishermen to congregate, and offered fly fishing services and items like tackle and flies. [5]
Lilly also sent out promotional literature and catalogues for fly-fishing and taught fly-fishing lessons. [5] He became a guide on the Madison, Gallatin, and Yellowstone rivers. [3] Some of his clients included Tom Brokaw, Jimmy Carter, [10] and British Ambassador Sir Peter Ramsbotham. [1] He also advocated for catch-and-release fishing and created a club at his shop to encourage the practice in Montana [3] that gave fishermen silver buttons for releasing trout of various lengths. [11] In addition, he supported women's involvement in fly fishing by offering “women-only fishing trips” and assisting in creating “women’s fly-fishing clubs”. [11]
“I was always engaged by the instant of the strike,” he wrote in his autobiography, published in 1988. “It doesn’t matter how many thousands of trout I’ve taken since. I still have the same excitement when I put a fly over a trout and a miracle happens.” [12]
The shop also published several editions of a merchandising catalogue and a fishing map of the area in tandem with California businessman David Bascomb. [1] When Lilly's first wife, Patricia, grew ill in 1981, Lilly decided to sell the shop in 1982, although the shop still bore his name during the tenure of the next few owners. [3]
Bud Lilly married Patricia Bennett on March 15, 1947. The couple had three children: Gregory, Michael, and Annette. After Patricia died in 1984 [13] of lung cancer, [9] Lilly then married Esther Simon. The couple had two children: Christopher and Alisa.
Bud Lilly also had an active career in conservation work. He was a director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a director of the Whirling Disease Foundation, a director-at-large for the American Wildlands, a board member of the Montana Land Resilience, a member of the National Federation of Fly Fishers, [14] and a member of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. [1] He has also worked with Trout Unlimited, which he helped found, since its inception [14] in 1962. [4] Lilly also served as the organization's first president. [15]
Following his work with the Trout Shop, Lilly continued his activism in conservation. Lilly's main causes were protecting trout and restoring waterways through preventing overgrazing and extensive logging near headwaters and major bodies of water. [5] He also worked to modify standard practices concerning stocking of hatchery fish and campaigned for increasing wild trout populations in Montana. [14] He was also “credited as one of the pioneers of the catch-and-release movement”, [9] which he began in the 1950s, “long before it became the norm”. [8]
Lilly received an honorary doctorate from Montana State University. He was also inducted into the Federation of Fly Fishers Hall of Fame and awarded the Heritage Award for lifetime achievement from the American Museum of Fly Fishing. [16] Bud also helped assemble the almost 10,000-volume collection of books, manuscripts and personal papers at Montana State University known as the Bud Lilly Trout and Salmonid Initiative. [6]
After his mother's death in 1994, Lilly remodeled “The Angler’s Retreat,” a lodge in Three Forks, Montana, to create an eighteen-room retreat for fly fishers in Montana. [5] He also founded the Western Rivers Club, an organization he created to “keep his former customers in touch”. [1] Lilly volunteered as a Montana Ambassador, [10] a state-sponsored program to encourage tourism and recreation in the state, and worked as a river keeper for Baker Springs, a land development company near his hometown of Manhattan, Montana. [1]
In his later years, Lilly's vision deteriorated due to macular degeneration, but he continued to fish frequently with friends. He also founded the Warriors and Quiet Waters Foundation, which “brings disabled vets to Montana to introduce them to fly fishing and the therapeutic power of ever-flowing waters”. [16] Bud Lilly died in Bozeman, Montana on January 4, 2017 [14] from heart failure [3] at the age of 91.
Livingston is a city and county seat of Park County, Montana, United States. It is in southwestern Montana, on the Yellowstone River, north of Yellowstone National Park. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 8,040.
The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 692 miles (1,114 km) long, in the Western United States. Considered the principal tributary of upper Missouri, via its own tributaries it drains an area with headwaters across the mountains and high plains of southern Montana and northern Wyoming, and stretching east from the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of Yellowstone National Park. It flows northeast to its confluence with the Missouri River on the North Dakota side of the border, about 25 miles (40 km) west of Williston.
The Madison River is a headwater tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 183 miles (295 km) long, in Wyoming and Montana. Its confluence with the Jefferson and Gallatin rivers near Three Forks, Montana forms the Missouri River.
The Gallatin River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 120 mi (193 km) long, in the U.S. states of Wyoming and Montana. It is one of three rivers, along with the Jefferson and Madison, that converge near Three Forks, Montana, to form the Missouri.
The East Gallatin River flows 42 miles (68 km) in a northwesterly direction through the Gallatin valley, Gallatin County, Montana. Rising from the confluence of Rocky Creek and several other small streams, the East Gallatin begins about one mile (1.6 km) east of downtown Bozeman, Montana. The river joins the main stem of the Gallatin River 2.3 miles (3.7 km) north of Manhattan, Montana. Throughout its course, the river traverses mostly valley floor ranch and farm land with typical summer flows of approximately 50 cu ft/s (1.4 m3/s).
The cutthroat trout(Oncorhynchus clarkii) is a fish species of the family Salmonidae native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean, Rocky Mountains, and Great Basin in North America. As a member of the genus Oncorhynchus, it is one of the Pacific trout, a group that includes the widely distributed rainbow trout. Cutthroat trout are popular gamefish, especially among anglers who enjoy fly fishing. The common name "cutthroat" refers to the distinctive red coloration on the underside of the lower jaw. The specific name clarkii was given to honor explorer William Clark, coleader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
The Firehole River is located in northwestern Wyoming, and is one of the two major tributaries of the Madison River. It flows north approximately 21 miles (34 km) from its source in Madison Lake on the Continental Divide to join the Gibbon River at Madison Junction in Yellowstone National Park. It is part of the Missouri River system.
George F. Grant was an American angler, author and conservationist from Butte, Montana. He was active for many years on the Big Hole River.
John Gierach is an American author and freelance writer who lives in Larimer County, Colorado. He was born in Illinois in 1946. Gierach graduated from Findlay College in Ohio with a degree in philosophy and a minor in English. In 1969, he moved to Colorado and began fishing nearly every day while working at a silver mine.
Angling in Yellowstone National Park is a major reason many visitors come to the park each year and since it was created in 1872, the park has drawn anglers from around the world to fish its waters. In 2006, over 50,000 park fishing permits were issued to visitors. The park contains hundreds of miles of accessible, high-quality trout rivers containing wild trout populations—over 200 creeks, streams and rivers are fishable. There are 45 fishable lakes and several large lakes are easily accessible to visitors. Additionally, the park's remote sections provide anglers ample opportunity to visit rivers, streams, creeks and lakes that receive little angling pressure. With the exception of one specially designated drainage, all the park's waters are restricted to artificial lures and fly fishing. The Madison, Firehole and a section of the Gibbon rivers are restricted to fly fishing only.
Dan Bailey was a fly-shop owner, innovative fly developer and staunch Western conservationist. Born on a farm near Russellville, Kentucky, Bailey is best known for the fly shop he established in Livingston, Montana in 1938. Dan Bailey's Fly Shop is still in business.
Parks' Fly Shop is a fly shop and licensed fly fishing outfitter in Gardiner, Montana. In business since 1953, the shop located at 202 2nd Street between Main and Stone is the oldest business in Gardiner under continuous family ownership.
This annotated bibliography is intended to list both notable and not so notable works of English language, non-fiction and fiction related to the sport of fly fishing listed by year published. Although 100% of any book listed is not necessarily devoted to fly fishing, all these titles have significant fly fishing content. Included in this bibliography is a list of fly tying, fly tackle, regional guides, memoirs, stories and fly fishing fiction related literature.
Fly Fishers International (FFI) is an international 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Livingston, Montana. It was founded in 1964 and formalized a year later in 1965. FFI is an organized voice for fly fishers around the world; they represent all aspects of fly fishing, which include the art of fly tying, casting, and protection of the natural systems that support healthy fisheries and their habitats. Today, the organization's goals are to ensure the legacy of fly fishing worldwide. They focus on conservation, education and a sense of community.
The Montana State University Library (MSU Library) is the academic library of Montana State University, Montana's land-grant university, in Bozeman, Montana, United States. It is the flagship library for all of the Montana State University System's campuses. In 1978, the library was named the Roland R. Renne Library to honor the sixth president of the university. The library supports the research and information needs of Montana's students, faculty, and the Montana Extension Service.
Paul Schullery was born in Middletown, Pennsylvania in 1948. He now lives in Bozeman, Montana. He has always been an avid hiker, fly fisher, photographer, wildlife watcher and has continuously documented his experience in his writing. Today, he is the author, co-author or editor of more than 40 books and numerous articles. His main focus for his works has to do with nature and our relationship with it as well as the wonders it presents us with now. Schullery studied American History at Wittenberg University and Ohio University, receiving his M.A. and B.A., respectively.
Dr. Robert J. Behnke was an American fisheries biologist and conservationist who was recognized as a world authority on the classification of salmonid fishes. He was popularly known as "Dr. Trout" or "The Trout Doctor". His seminal work, Trout and Salmon of North America, was published in 2002. He wrote a regular column for Trout Magazine, the quarterly publication of Trout Unlimited. He was a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Colorado Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and a professor at Colorado State University in the 1970s. He became a Professor Emeritus at the Department of Fishery and Wildlife Biology at Colorado State University.
The Trout and Salmonid Collection is a special collection of literature and archives in the Montana State University Library's Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections Library. The collection is also known as The Bud Lilly Trout and Salmonid Collection, named after Bud Lilly who was instrumental in starting the collection. The approximately 20,000-volume collection, established in 2000, is devoted to preserving literary, scientific, government and media resources related to all aspects of trout and other salmonids. The collection contains materials in many languages and is not restricted by geography. It is considered a world-class collection of international significance relative to the study of trout and salmonids.
Datus C. Proper (1934-2003) was a political analyst with the U.S. State Department Foreign Service, an outdoors writer, and a fly fisherman.