And at 100 years old, Pittsfield's Charles Lahey will have his name placed among the greatest American anglers in history.
A longtime fly fisherman, Lahey will be inducted into the North American Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame tonight during a ceremony at Bass Water Grill in Cheshire hosted by the Taconic Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Officials from the Wisconsin-based organization decided to travel here to save the centenarian a trip.
An exclusive club
Lahey is the first Berkshire County resident to join the exclusive club, to which only a handful of Massachusetts residents belong. Previous anglers inducted into the hall include famed sportscaster Curt Gowdy, President Theodore Roosevelt, baseball great Ted Williams, a host of professional fishermen, and the man who invented the bass fishing boat.
A Pittsfield native who spent 44 years as a senior underwriter at Berkshire Life, Lahey said, "I don't know why they picked me."
Officials said an anonymous individual nominated Lahey, whose first fishing outing was at 7 years old, when he fashioned a rod out of a branch and attached a string and a hook to the end.
His early fishing holes were small ponds and streams on farms in West Pittsfield. At 20, a man fishing the west
He was hooked.
"I like the action," he said. "With fly fishing, you try and bring the fish to you. With regular fishing, you have to wait."
Lahey is being inducted as a "Legendary Angler," fishermen who the organization say have exceptional skills, have grown the sport, and have had an impact on angling on a regional level.
The North American Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame's Jerry Gibbs, a former editor for Outdoor Life magazine and himself a Hall of Fame inductee, will present the plaque to Lahey.
‘A master of timing'
Gene Chague, secretary of the Berkshire County League of Sportsmen and outdoors columnist for The Eagle, said Lahey is one of the great legends of the local fishing community.
The two have fished together for the last 12 years.
"He's a master of timing," Chague said. "He casts perfectly, what we call a ‘tight loop.' And for anyone who sees him, fisherman or non-fisherman alike, he's an inspiration for everything he can still do."
Lahey said his love of fly fishing was born from a love of nature. He has fished in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and New York.
His largest fish was "about a 4 pound trout."
"A lot of the bigger ones got away," he said. "But that's the fun of it. You usually miss the big ones."
Today, he's strictly a catch-and-release fisherman who prefers to remain on the banks rather than stand in the water. He gets out about three or four times a year and still uses a 40-year-old Fenwick Feralite fly fishing rod.
Fishing keeps him going
His wife, Norma, died 10 years ago at age 91. They were married for 64 years.
There are still pictures of her scattered around his small one-bedroom apartment on Holmes Road, where he prefers to live alone.
In the corner of his dining room sits a radio from the 1940s. A Boston Red Sox plaque hangs on the wall. A medical alert button hangs around his neck.
His daughter, Andrea Dimassimo, said fishing keeps him going.
"It's the thing that makes him happiest," she said. "He's a trooper."
Lahey is known for one of the trout flies he designed and named "The Mad River Special." It is an orange-bodied bucktail fly that he developed to fish the Mad River in Vermont, his favorite spot.
"I've caught a lot of fish with that one," he said.
A perfect day for him, he said, has more to do with the experience -- not the catch.
"I don't care whether or not I catch a fish," he said. "It's all about the world around you, the nature all around you. You really get to see and feel the beauty."
To reach Benning W. De La Mater:
bdelamater@berkshireeagle.com or (413) 496-6243.
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