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By GEORGE SMITH
georges@leader.net
Sunday, March 09, 2003 Page: 10C
WILKES-BARRE – Joe Humphreys is a busy man.
At age 74, he maintains a hectic pace that would wear down a person half
his age.
But Humphreys, from Boalsburg, is not just any man.
More than 25 years ago, in 1977, Humphreys landed a Pennsylvania state
record brown trout on a fly.
That huge fish – and a book call “Joe Humphrey’s Trout Tactics” written
afterward – launched him into the public eye and made him one of the state’s
best-known and most highly respected anglers.
Consider that Humphreys is prominently featured on a giant mural on the
side of a building in State College, not far from his home.
And consider that “Trout Tactics” has become one of the top five
best-selling books on fly fishing of all time.
Yet Humphreys is far from arrogant about his accomplishments and notoriety.
“They must be desperate for people to come up there and speak in
Wilkes-Barre,” Humphreys said with a laugh.
The Stanley Cooper Sr. Chapter of Trout Unlimited will feature an evening
with Humphreys at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the VFW Anthracite Post 283, 757
Wyoming Ave., Kingston. The public is invited, and there is no change for
admission.
And what will Humphreys do to keep anglers entertained as well as
enlightened regarding the latest trout fishing techniques?
“Oh, I imagine I’ll perform a little soft-shoe routine,” Humphreys said.
But the man who wrote “Trout Tactics” is not all comedy. He knows exactly
how to reel an audience into his fold.
“I’m doing this thing about nymphing a trout stream; I call it `Romancing
the Trout.’
“It’s really neat. I put music to it, and I go into night fishing. It’s
good stuff. Smart stuff.”
Humphreys is known for advancing nymphing as a technique to take trout, but
he points out he is equally capable with a dry fly.
What he essentially pioneered and does do better than anyone else is fish
for trophy trout at night.
Humphreys landed the Pennsylvania record brown trout while fishing at night
(the record has since been eclipsed) back in ’77. It was a mammoth, 34-inch
fish taken at 1 a.m. on Aug. 8 on a giant 1/0 wet fly. The trout weighed 15
pounds, 4 ounces and was caught in Clinton County’s Fishing Creek.
“I worked three years for that fish,” Humphreys said.
Although he was already well-known as a fly-fisherman – he followed George
Harvey as Penn State University’s second “fly-fishing professor” – that trout
provided him with even greater public exposure.
Since then, Humphreys has been besieged with requests to speak and to
provide casting and fly-tying clinics. And he’s doing his best to accommodate
everyone.
Take this winter, for example. He’s hardly had a weekend off.
“I’ve done nothing but travel,” he said without a hint of weariness. “I
started out doing a weekend show in Denver, then one in Maryland, Boston,
Somerset, N.J., Tampa, Seattle. I’m leaving for San Francisco this weekend,
and the weekend after that I going to Los Angeles,” he said.
The shows are not all fun and games and adoring angling fans.
“It’s tough to work these shows. I’ll teach casting from 8:30 to 11 maybe,
then I’ll be a featured fly tier. Then there’s the book signings. They are
long days,” said Humphreys, who has fished in three fly-fishing World
Championships in Finland, Italy and Wales.
He also competed in the World-Wide Trout Open Flyfishing Championships held
on the rivers Nore and King in Ireland.
Humphrey’s brown trout record on a fly was a first, and so is his new
video, “The Night Game.” He plans to have copies of the video available
Tuesday.
“It’s the first video on night fishing. Night fishing is really tough, and
it took four years to complete the video,” he said.
Filming the one-hour video had its pitfalls, as lights must be used for
night camera work.
Anyone who has fished for trout at night knows artificial light puts fish
down.
“On the Madison, it wasn’t too bad, but in Pennsylvania, as soon as the
lights went on, the fish quit.
“We learned through trial and error and got the job done,” Humphreys said.
No doubt he will get the job done later this year in Labrador, home of the
largest brook trout, when the weather moderates.
“We are going to be filming a brook trout video in Labrador. We are going
to film it as a teaching video,” he said.
Despite his busy schedule, Humphreys said the thought of slowing down just
a little is not appealing in the least.
“At 74, I don’t have the energy I used to, but I have enough to keep firing
away,” he said.
George Smith, a Times leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7230.
Banquet, auction
aids conservation
The Stanley Cooper Sr. Chapter of Trout Unlimited will hold its 13th Annual
Conservation Banquet at 5 p.m. on March 22 at the Best Western East Mountain
Inn, state Route 115, Plains Township.
The Stan Cooper TU Chapter is the largest TU chapter in Northeast
Pennsylvania. Proceeds from the banquet will be used to protect, preserve and
restore area trout streams and their habitat.
The banquet will feature a live auction, a silent auction and bucket
raffles. Items to be auctioned include rods by Scott, Sage, Winston, Bean and
Orvis, and reels from Bauer, Orvis, Abel and Ross.
In addition, limited edition prints, guided trips, pontoon boats, collector
flies and fly-tying materials and tools are among the prizes included in the
raffles and auctions.
Tickets are $40 each. Call Ernie Pagliarini at 654-7960 for more
information.