The remarkable George F. Grant was a spry 102 years old and on September 18, 2008. On one of my many jaunts to FFF Conclaves about twelve years ago I first flew to Butte, MT to fish with Mark Lane. While there, I learned that George was living in a local assisted care facility, before leaving, I got the yellow pages and called them all until I found him. It was a very nice new facility and we had a great visit. George was lucid most of the time and I really enjoyed his tales of the early years. It was fantastic to see him in such great spirits.
In the 1970s, I corresponded and spoke to George Grant regularly about the difficulties of our saving our rivers and I read his “River Rat” Newsletter voraciously. My early recollections of George Grant, the father of the Big Hole River and prestigious 1973 Buz Buszek Award winner, was when he came to FFF Conclaves in the 70’s among the greats, where he alone sold his boxes of fantastic flies for $15 and donated the money to the FFF Conservation Fund. As others have said, George’s kindness, thoughtfulness and love of Montana were always his hallmarks. He is a quiet man that carried a big stick. George Grant founded the Big Hole River Foundation in 1989 and they still offer a set of ten of his 60-80 page soft cover booklets as a fund raiser. The FFF sent a delegation to George’s 100th birthday party in Helena.
George wrote a number of articles for the America Museum of Fly Fishing and one of the better personal biographies was in their Spring 1981 Issue of American Fly Fisher. He could not find a publisher for his first books and they had to be initially self-published. That changed rapidly as his great skill and artistry gained wider recognition and I am proud to have Copy No. 1441 of The Master Weaver (1980) and Copy No. 1558 of Montana Trout Files (1981). The Fly at the left is George’s 1937 Black Creeper.
While reminiscing, I dug out my 1993 Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks “Three Men, Three Rivers” video that in addition to Dan Bailey and Bud Lilly has some great footage of George tying and fishing. He had lost his job with the railroad during the depression and never stopped fishing. The Big Hole River is in his blood and his admiration for wild trout borders on reverence. “It’s best to fish alone. One should leisurely meander as does the stream without hurry. There should be no competition or deadline while soaking in the sights, sounds, and the scent of wild trout.”
George Grant was a gentle giant among men who we will always remember with the same warm feelings he had for woven flies, rivers, and wild trout.
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