Yesterday we all learned of Bud Lilly’s passing Wednesday night in Bozeman.
There are few men or women alive today who have done as much for fly fishing, fisheries management, and Montana / Northern Rockies conservation as Bud did over the years.
As expected, tributes have just begun to pour in and there will be many written over the next few weeks. This piece in the Independent Record was one of the better regional stories, capturing well Lilly’s colorful early history beginning with his birth on the kitchen table in Manhattan, Montana in 1925.
I still think one of the better pieces written locally about Lilly was this one – Bud Lilly, Father of Fly Fishing – written by Mike England of Outside Bozeman years ago.
Lilly wrote or co-authored a number of books over the years; if you’re a reader of fly fishy literature you need to scrounge up a copy of his autobiography A Trout’s Best Friend, if it’s not on your bookshelf today, co-authored (as were several of his books) with regional savant Paul Schullery.
Jake and I both had the pleasure of running into Bud in and around the fly shops in West over the years, even after he sold his own shop in the early 80‘s; he was always the gentleman and never once did we ever see him not be the kind, soft spoken, fly fishing sage to folks he met.
Condolences to his family and many friends and a hearty salute to a true fly fishing pioneer.
He’ll be missed.
