Nat Greene Flyfishers    May 2009

John Baskervill, 1924-2009

When I joined Nat Greene in 1988, I noticed a group of older members who huddled together. They usually sat in the back of the room but were heard above a speaker’s voice due to the tendency of the elderly to talk loudly in compensation of their declining hearing. One of the members of this group stood out in my mind because he always seemed to have preceded the speaker to any North Carolina destination. That member was John Baskervill.

John passed away last month at age 84. Over his life he explored more fishing holes across the state than the rest of Nat Greene put together. He graduated from NC State with a degree in forestry. This preparation translated into a career selling lumber. Funny thing about that, John’s business travels always seemed to be near a trout stream. I can recall many instances where a speaker would ask John if he had been to the stream under discussion only to have John ask in return if the old barn near such-and-such was still there. Yes, John was the real McCoy. He had indeed ‘been there.’ And like a true fisherman, he was typically close-mouthed about exactly where he was.

I look back with some irony at my recent re-reading of Buck Paysour’s “Fly Fishing in North Carolina.” The book was published in 1995 and could have been sub-titled a “Who’s Who of the Nat Greene Flyfishers.” Members such as Bill Black, Bill Wilkerson, Bodie McDowell and most prominently John Baskerville were highlighted. The index lists eighteen references to John. He is featured in fresh- and saltwater venues. There is an iconic photo of him standing in a trout stream.

Buck held John’s opinions in such high esteem that the book devotes an entire appendix to an essay by John: “How to catch trout on dry flies in the Southern Appalachians.” The essay is pure John: to the point, eminently practical and critical of the status quo, especially the dreaded magazine writers. The very first sentence, in fact, recommends you “forget about ninety percent of what you read.” He boils down trout fishing to blending in with the surroundings, quietly stalking the fish, making short casts with a minimum of rod movement and learning about your quarry. Don’t be concerned about hatch matching, just use something you can see and that floats well, like a Humpy or Royal Wulff. The soundness of his advice is based on, in his words, “the untimely demise of thousands of trout over a period of fifty-plus years.”

I never fished with John although we tried to ‘hook up.’ One Tuesday he called and wanted to know if I could go fishing that day. My wife Molly replied, where do you think he is, he’s at work. More recently, John called to congratulate me on the News and Record article I wrote about Bob Clouser. He said it was full of facts and that most fishing articles were not. I invited him to go shad fishing with me on the Roanoke but he declined, saying his boat fishing days were over. I saw him at the February meeting this year and his frailty was apparent. Now his days astream are at an end.

To many, John was a crusty old codger critical of new ideas. But if you took the time to look beneath the surface, you would find a fisherman of such enormous depth of experience you could tell he was constantly evaluating years afield against the next new thing, and the latter usually came up short. John was indeed the real McCoy. Those of us who knew him knew a genuine outdoorsman, who if asked was more than willing to give you a direct, honest answer.

I won’t fish with him now, except through memories and Buck’s writing. He joins a list of anglers who have come and gone before me, and whose legacies live on in us all. Remember John as you tread the back woods. Smell the forest, listen to the stream and know he was there before you.

Jim Brady

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