Naming Names

We're four days from book launch and today I'm naming names, revealing the twenty-eight fishermen in the book.

To make the book more user friendly we inserted not only the regular table of contents at the beginning, but also on the next page an alphabetical listing of the fly fishermen for easy reference.

Some of the men wrote their story in four or less pages.

Some of them wrote and wrote and wrote. Their submissions contained unbelievable fish stories, make that unbelievably long fish stories. Our chore was determining which to include and which to toss. Hard decisions.

One minor issue that I pushed for, and achieved, was to label each man's pages with their names in the heading. Since each chapter (by the way, we did not number chapters) is written in first person, the reader must stay aware of who is doing the speaking. Using the word "I" throughout the book works only if the "I" is identified and the reader is reminded which "I" is which.

Are you ready for the "I" list? Here goes:

Newland Saunders

“Cap” Wiese

Charlie Bean

Joe McDade

Henry Wilson

John Turner

Cecil Harman

Stanley Tuttle

Monty Tuttle

Bill Barlow

Monte Seehorn

Jay Reese

Ken Beard

James Henson

Wayne Storie

Kyle Garrou

Tony Woods

Doug Suddreth

Mark Miller

Kevin Story

Don McNeill

Gene Swanson

Brian Suddreth

Bill Everhardt

Jim Childers

Randy Benfield

Alen Baker

Ron Beane

Recognize anyone? If not, don't worry, you'll meet them soon in the book. The order isn't random. Many of the men mention each other and the reader must meet some of them early on in order to fully understand the stories.

The first fisherman on the list, Newland Saunders, was part of the inspiration for the book. He's the one that, just before his death, told Ron Beane, "Tell our story." He's the cover fisherman. He had a strong influence on fly fishing in Caldwell County, in all of North Carolina for that matter. His daughter and his nephew wrote his chapter. He would be proud of what they said.

Newland Saunders at his fly tying bench

We saved Ron's chapter for the end. In the preface he explains his reason for writing the book. In the final chapter he tells his own story. 

This format sandwiches all the stories in between. My, what a sandwich to digest. I can't wait for you to consume it.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen