Flip Pallot one of the original OG's and a legend in fishing, fly fishing's and all things outdoors He died of complications following surgery in Georgia on August 26th. He was 82 years old.
I waited a day to post something about Flip as social media had every angle covered. From the people that called him friend to those that met him once or were influenced by him the posts filled my feeds. I met Flip once at The Fly Fishing Show when Bob Popovics called me over to introduce me to him. Wow. It was quick, but it was memorable.
I first saw Flip Pallot when I started watching Walker's Cay Chronicles in 1994. The show began a year or two after A River Runs Through It just about when I started fly fishing. It was on
Sundays on ESPN that I would watch it, and if it fell when I was working I would leave the firehouse kitchen and go to the watch room to catch it as I was the lone fishermen of the crew.
I remember his narration (after the first season) which would begin with "Come with me on a trip into angling adventure, we'll ride the jagged edge where the fish are big and wild....", it was fascinating television in a time when magazines and books were the go-to source of information. There was no internet, no forums, no social media. The magazines, books, and fly fishing shows would satiate the hunger for what was out there in terms of fish to be caught in exotic locations. Everything back then seemed inaccessible, from the legends of the game, to the places they fished, to the fish they hunted. Flip, like Jose Wejebe, Marc Sosin, and Curt Gowdy, brought us with them into the great unknowns which fed our curiosity and allowed us to live each adventure through them.
These days we're over exposed to everyone who has a Go Pro and a You Tube account. With free video editing software available people can produce super high quality videos with relative
ease. That didn't happen back in the day when video was shot on film which was edited, cut, and spliced together. But times are different and so are the motivations of the creators. Back then those original guys did it to share and teach which is a little different then the chest pumping "Look at me's" we see today.
It's easy to say we have lost an enormous amount of the anglers who this industry was built on. There are still some big names out there that we are lucky to still have with us, Joe Humphries and Bob Clouser come to mind. But how many have we lost, Gartside, Brooks, Kreh, Wejebe, Sosin, Wulff, Beck, and of course, Bob Popovics. Flip Pallot was surely among the Royals.
Bobby told me about the time he went to Montauk to film an episode of WCC with Flip and Paul Dixon. He said it was an amazing time even though the weather didn't cooperate with what they had in mind. You can see that episode below,
I am saddened by the passing of Flip Pallot. Not that I knew him personally but I know what he did for fly fishing and his influence on so many that enjoy our sport today. He was one of the legends, and this week he joins his, and our, friends where I hope the tides are right and the fish are biting.
I don't know how this industry is going to survive and stand tall when all of the pillars who held it down for so many years are passing on. RIP Flip, and thank you for everything.
If you'd like to hear a great interview with Flip check out Andy Mill's Millhouse Podcast, HERE, where you can hear about his fishing, hunting, and television career, his father, and his thoughts on friendship and mentorship. It's a great one. That voice will never be replicated.