An Angler for All Seasons

A biography of Willis K. "Chip" Stauffer. Born in 1905, Chip spend much of his life fishing with dozens of the most noted American fly-fishermen including Jim Leisenring, Preston Jennings, Herman Christian, Edward Hewitt, Art Flick, Dana Lamb, Jack Atherton, Charles DeFeo, Sparse Gray Hackle and numerous others. He was a revered member at the Anglers Club of New York and his name appears in more than dozen major books on fly fishing including works by Jennings, Flick, Schwiebert, Lamb,...
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A biography of Willis K. "Chip" Stauffer. Born in 1905, Chip spend much of his life fishing with dozens of the most noted American fly-fishermen including Jim Leisenring, Preston Jennings, Herman Christian, Edward Hewitt, Art Flick, Dana Lamb, Jack Atherton, Charles DeFeo, Sparse Gray Hackle and numerous others. He was a revered member at the Anglers Club of New York and his name appears in more than dozen major books on fly fishing including works by Jennings, Flick, Schwiebert, Lamb, Talleur and Schmookler. Together with Preston Jennnings, Stauffer smuggled Old English Gamecock eggs into the U.S. in the 1930s and established one of the first successful hackle farms for fly tying materials, decades before the rise of the modern commerical operations of today.Chip's life story was interwoven with personal triumph, tragedy and re-birth, each event and activity somehow circling back to his life as an angler, whilst finding strength and healing in the waters he waded. A true American story told here in the form of his own album, photographs and letters as well as the memories shared by a few of his closest friends. The ultimate fly fisher's life, experienced by the most humble of men.