Live The Stream: The Story of Joe Humphreys (2018) - full transcript

(birds chirping)

This piece of water we're gonna fish, it's a thicket.

The casting is very demanding in this tight brush.

I don't think that this cast

and this type of fishing has ever really been recorded.

Come on, control it.

If we can capture this on film today,

it will be a highlight.

This is not gonna be an easy day

but it's gonna be a great one.

(relaxed guitar music)



To catch a brook trout in all its wriggled beauty,

it's gold to me.

(relaxed country guitar music)

♪ Blue ♪

♪ Is the ocean ♪

♪ Green ♪

♪ Is the sea ♪

♪ I ♪

♪ Chose between them ♪

♪ They ♪

♪ Both chose me ♪

♪ Painted black on my door ♪

♪ I ain't waitin' for a cry ♪

♪ to come by ♪



♪ Give me a sign that I want more ♪

♪ I ain't sure if there's time ♪

I am Joe Humphreys.

I am 86 years old,

86 years young.

It took me about two and a half years to write this book

and so many times when I was writing that book,

I hit the wall and the way I got around that,

I just picked up the fly rod, head for the stream,

work a patch of water and said,

"Oh, this is what I want to say."

♪ Come light the day, your sun ♪

♪ Starts to wake my eyes ♪

♪ Bless my eyes ♪

♪ Soon ♪

♪ Hesitate on my ♪

♪ Soul, whoa ♪

I'm a professional fly fisherman

here in Central Pennsylvania and these streams

are some of my favorites to fish in all the world.

I've been fishing since I was six years old.

From that moment on, I have lived, breathed,

taught and competed in the wonderful sport of fly fishing.

♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ On my soul ♪

Fly fishing is a form of fishing where

instead of using live bait like worms,

you mimic bugs with materials such as fur and feathers.

The fly is cast into the water with a fly rod

and propelled by the weight of a line.

Well, isn't that neat?

That is beautiful.

After 80 years, I can't imagine doing anything else.

Oh, ho, ho, ho, that's a nice fish.

You might as well get this 'cause Ranger Rick,

if I still have that fish,

I'm gonna get him one way or the other.

When I hook a big fish or I hook a fish at night

or anytime I'm fishing and I get into a fish,

the little boy comes back.

Oh, did he get off?

It was a big brown trout, a brown trout about that long.

That was a brown trout about 14 inches.

Oh well.

It's no coincidence that my life has always been enchanted

by a beautiful creature that's tough to catch, a fish.

(relaxed rock music)

♪ On my soul ♪

(rhythmic chanting)

♪ On my soul ♪

I have made fly fishing my livelihood.

I've taught thousands of students

over a period of many years.

I will continue to teach until

I've finally reached the bottom of that mountain.

My dad has accomplished so much in his life

and he is really famous in the fishing world.

Almost every place we go or any place we travel,

we will meet people who know him.

He's fished in pretty much every state in the US

and that includes Alaska, he's done World Championships.

He's traveled all over the world fishing.

But my dad does everything

when it comes to teaching fly fishing.

My purpose and intent of this video

is to have you enjoy this sport to its fullest.

The line is in motion and fling it.

The back two fingers pull.

He did the first fly fishing series ever on ESPN.

"Fly Fishing Journal"

with your host, Joe Humphreys.

Today on "Fly Fishing journal,"

I have with me, my special guest George Harvey.

George and I have been fishing many years together

and it's a real pleasure for me to have

my mentor on the stream with me on this Spring-

We'll meet people who will say

"I learned so much through watching his videos."

Fish along with me this morning

and maybe we can catch a couple fish.

Maybe we can get really lucky and catch three.

His books meant

everything to me when I was growing up.

He does fly fishing shows, clinics.

When I'm through with this demo, you'll be so screwed up,

you won't know which end of the rod to hold.

So that's fair warning.

I always think there's nothing left to do

but he always says there's that one more book in him.

There's one more video in him.

There's always something else that can be done.

To me, one of his biggest contributions

is all the charity work he does.

Do I have all my little students here?

Yes.
Hello.

Hello there.

For him, it's not about fame or glory.

He feels that he's been given this gift

and he needs to give it to other people.

What happens to people if they don't have

proper instruction and they don't have any direction

and they try unsuccessfully on their own,

frustrations build, "I'll try golf."

When you have instruction and nothing succeeds

like success and you say, "Whoa, this is kind of fun."

When you catch a fish, you're off and running.

You never forget it.

Are those just sticks?
Taking the second right.

That he glued together?
Going over the stream.

That's a catus.
Oh, it is a catus, cool.

Who would have every thought that that little fellow

would've been built of that complete house of sticks.

He was amazing to go hike with

and I guess I thought everyone's dad was this way.

He would be able to tell you whatever tracks

you saw, what animal it was or respect of nature.

You thought everyone's dad was like that?

Oh, I thought everyone's dad was like that.

Then I realized other people's dads were in office

buildings in the summer and not doing those kind of things.

You got a bright future, honey.

Thank you very much.
Good.

(soft guitar music)

What got me hooked on fly fishing?

The interest, it was almost innate, it was there.

I was born with it.

I've always felt strongly about a piece of water,

a stream, like it's almost running through my system

and my body and I think that started at such a tender age.

I loved to play in the water.

I loved to wade in the water.

I loved to look for things in the water

and so it was just a natural.

It all started when my father

moved us from Curwensville, Pennsylvania.

This house was my family home

and in that second floor is where we were all born

and I was born January 19th, 1929.

Those were the Great Depression years.

My father had lost his job in a bank. They were hard years.

So in 1935, we moved to State College

because my father wanted his children to be educated

and he got a job in the Bursar's Office

at Penn State University and my life changed.

But that's where it started.

That move, it was a weird twist of fate.

Yes, I got my BS degree and my Masters

in Education and it's what I wanted to do.

But little did my father realize

that he also gave me my livelihood.

State College was the mecca of fly fishing

because of Fishermans Paradise,

a piece of Spring Creek developed

in 1934 for fly fishing only.

This was the first all fly fishing

project in the United States, if not the world.

With this piece of water, fly fishing

was something to learn about and something to do.

We have more trout streams in Pennsylvania than

I think any other State in the Union, other than Alaska.

Central Pennsylvania is limestone country.

Not only is the area rich in nutrients,

the runoff from the mountains, the hills,

the freestone streams go down into the valleys.

A lot of the streams go underground

and come up as major springs.

(relaxed guitar music)

The clear, cold, top of the mountain water.

The trout population, their metabolism

demands temperatures into the 50s, 60s to survive.

This is why we have such wonderful trout waters in the area,

because of the beautiful big springs

that keep our waters clear and cold.

The mountains, the streams, the resources

were so wonderful and so the State College area

was an important aspect of my life.

We are going after some cold spring water.

That water is absolutely delightful

and that's what I have in my coffee here.

So that's my coffee water in the mornings.

It's cold spring water that come right out of the mountains.

Nothing added.

I can't find any better water than what I have right here.

And off we go to the happy lands.

We are now following the main stream of Spring Creek.

My father took me to Spring Creek when I was a child.

I was six years old.

Neither of us had ever fished or picked up a fishing rod.

We were fishing worms with bamboo fly rods.

And my first cast, the worm luckily landed in the water

and then I felt a tug and I pulled and out came a trout and

it flew up over my head and landed in the weeds behind me.

That didn't take long.

I was so excited and lo and behold,

there was an eight inch trout, a native brown.

I was just in awe of the beauty of that fish.

The halos, the spots.

So this is the beginning and after

my first experience with my father, it was a quest.

Here's another one.

It really stuck with me.

I wanted to fish.

You might say that I was self-taught.

My early efforts were very clumsy

but I had the patience of Job.

This is where I caught some of my very first trout.

I guess you could call this one of my major classrooms.

When I was probably eight, 10,

I would get on my bicycle, fly rod across the handlebar

and I would pedal, pedal to Thompson Run.

Thompson Run is a tributary of Spring Creek.

There was so much I learned from Thompson Run.

I would view trout, watch them feed readily.

Where they went, how they lifted,

how they positioned themselves.

It was like they were laying out a plan for me.

How would I capture these fish?

How could I catch one of these?

The most amazing thing to me about what Joe has done,

79 years ago, there was no internet, there were no videos,

there wasn't a library of books to learn from.

My childhood pictures.

This guy has figured it out on his own.

Take a look at these.

I tell a story about catching this fish out of Thompson Run

and I had tried to catch this trout at earlier times

and he disappeared through my clumsiness.

After the last time I spooked that fish,

I waded into the water and I grabbed a handful

of vegetation and it was alive with freshwater shrimp and

some of these shrimp had a little touch of orange on them.

I found some orange sewing thread in my mother's

sewing basket and with some fur and that sewing thread,

I fashioned what I thought

was something that looked like it.

I went back to the stream, got into position and made

the cast and the fish traveled a few feet for that fly.

It was a 14 inch fish, one of the biggest I had ever taken.

Now I knew it took the fly underneath

as well as on top and this is called nymphing.

I pedaled my bicycle home with that prize

and my mother took a picture of that fish.

The trout streams of State College, they were my classroom,

my playground, they were like coming home.

I still live in State College because in my 25 mile radius,

there are several streams you can fish.

All the special water that held a lot of memories for me.

Henge Creek, Fishing Creek and the little Juning Ladder.

Thompson Run down here and Spring Creek.

Oh, donuts this morning. Well thank you.

How do you like that coffee this morning?

Wonderful as always.

But Spring Creek is my lifeline.

Spring Creek flows 22 miles from a source

near my home in the mountains of the Tussey Ridge

and its confluence with a Bald Eagle Creek in Milesburg.

Spring Creek means everything to me.

It's my childhood, my parents

and my siblings

but also my wife

and children.

Gloria and I raised our family on this stream

because it runs behind my property.

I have two wonderful daughters, Johanna and Dolores

and Dolores, she was in one of my ESPN shows with me.

And featuring special guest, Dolores Humphreys.

I guess the last time we were together

really and spending much time on the stream at all

was when you had my angling class at Penn State University.

That right.

He went out West or a time after high school

and helped build the Million Dollar Highway

in Colorado and he fished the Dolores River.

I'm even named after a river and Johanna is named after him.

Both girls have made me so proud.

Little Johanna being a track champion.

I don't have the fishing connection with my dad.

I have the athletic connection.

We're both pretty strong-willed and pretty stubborn

and it's always been a competition.

Even as a kid, he would challenge me to races in the yard.

You know, 'cause he really wanted to beat me.

He's a character.

The secret of my longevity is whole milk.

I drink milk like it's going out of style.

I've never had a broken bone and I've been

in every kind of undesirable situation and no broken bones

and then I ate a lot of fish in my life.

When I was a kid, I fished a lot and that's what we ate.

This is the Joe Humphreys, we're hungry,

We threw a trout in the pan, we cook it, we eat it.

My trout sandwich.

Yeah baby.

Life is good.

No tattoos?
No, I never had a tattoo.

But I have something of that fashion I guess you might say.

I have a golden trout on in my tooth.

How old were you when you got that?

Oh, who knows? Probably in my 60s.

And then there's Denny.

My sister and I rely on Denny now

as an even bigger part of my dad's life.

Denny is the brother that we never had.

Denny is like my son, we're so close.

He was fishing on our stream many years ago and

did not see the no trespassing sign and he met my mother.

Fast-forward a dozen years later and he is someone

that's incredibly important to our family.

Because of Gloria, I get to fish with Jo,

we get to go to dinner with the girls,

spend Christmas together, our families are very close.

A lot of people have asked me over the years,

"Summarize Joe as a fly fishermen."

It's almost impossible.

Throw him on a small mountain stream where

you've got no room to cast and he throws

a Humpy up in there and takes an eight inch brook trout.

Yay.

The same day, you could go to a big limestone

in Central Pennsylvania and he'll drift nymph stone

on the bottom and pick fish off the bottom.

I said I was gonna take

another one before I get outta there.

There's one.
There's one.

That's a better fish.

Yeah, that's what I wanted.

You go out that night at 2:00

in the morning in the dark of the moon

and he'll swing big wet flies and catch a behemoth.

Yeah, I have it, you sucker.

I couldn't get him in the net in there.

It's a good fish. It's a nice big fish.

Yeah, you think the old man can't still catch fish?

I've been a fan of his since

he caught his State Record brown trout in the dark.

Go ahead and tell us of your State Record.

Oh, the story?
Yeah.

It's late evening, I'm fishing a big, long, deep pool

and I hear a tremendous explosion and it went stone quiet.

I knew it had to be a heck of a fish.

I almost got a divorce over this one

because I stalked the fish for three years,

going night after night after night.

Gloria saying "You're fishing"

And I told her about this fish.

One night, my telephone rang and it was my buddy Al Hag

and he said, "Hey Hump, I'm antsy.

Why don't you go fishing? I'll just go along."

And I said, "Okay, Al."

So I went back to the pool and I went down

through the first time and I took a pretty nice fish,

18, 19 and it was okay but I was excited

because now it's 1:00 morning.

He said to me, "Don't you think it's time to go home?"

I said, "Just let me run this top end just one more time."

And I chucked those two flies across that stream

in that backwater and I gave 'em a little tip

to get those flies into motion and all at once,

they stopped and the rod tip goes (groaning).

It sounded like somebody rolled a Wurst tub over

and I put the hammer to this fish, I was just

almost out of line and I stopped the fish on the run.

I had no net, a net wouldn't have landed that fish anyhow

and Al said "Oh my god, I've never seen a fish this big."

and I said, "Neither have I, I think I've got a record."

The ward measured it, it was a 16 pound 34 inch brown trout.

The previous record was 33.

For 11 years, it was Pennsylvania's record trout.

It is still the fly-caught record brown trout

for trout in Pennsylvania and probably a lot of States.

That's the story of the big fish.

I think of that fish often

but I've always wanted a 20 pound brown.

That's been my drive through life.

I want a World Record and this is one reason

that I really got into the night game.

God bless you.
See you, sir. Thank you.

Thank you.

Joe, he's famous for night fishing.

We've got some fans.

Night fishing to me is one of my favorite games.

It's when the heavyweights come out to feed.

Your big trout, World Record fish, they're nocturnal.

These two patterns, I call 'em my stonefly patterns.

These flies are big, they move water.

They represent large insects like a stonefly.

We're gonna go give these a try and see

if we can't find something larger than a foot long.

So here we go.

Follow the blind here,

Denny.

Here's a tip for anybody fishing at night.

Never go on a stream that you don't know

after dark because it can be very dangerous.

You can lose your life.

Whoa, watch these thistles.

Night fishing, it's not for everybody.

I mean it's tripping and falling, getting lost, snakes.

Joe has a great story about stepping on a rattlesnake

whacking his waders in the middle of the dark.

It is not as easy as he makes it look.

It is a lifetime of work that he's put into this.

Your casting stroke

and your casting ability comes into play.

Okay, lights out.

It's called pinpoint casting in darkness.

You have to know when to squeeze that stroke off

to get back under those trees and next to that bank

and if you don't spot that fly in the very few inches,

it's difficult to take them.

(relaxed guitar music)

I got a big fish. Oh, I got a fish, fish on.

When you have the take of a large fish at night

and you feel that heavy weight and the power of a fish,

it's truly exciting because you don't know

on the take, how big that fish is.

It could be 20 inches, it could be 20 pounds.

Are you getting any of this battle?

Are you getting any of this?

Do you want to see a big fish at night?

There's a big fish at night.

(laughing)

It's called credibility.

Don't talk about it if you can't do it.

How about that, huh?
What a day.

The fact that you become known for some expertise

in your field, that's wonderful but I think as a teacher,

you want to be as well-versed as you possibly can.

You owe it to your students.

I have traveled extensively and have had the privilege

of working with so many people and teaching so long

and I'm still so busy teaching.

Any given week, he's gone at least

three-quarters of the week teaching a class.

July still has a couple open dates

and August still has a couple open dates

but otherwise this entire schedule book is filled.

I'm moving all the time, going so many different places.

When you get old, you think old, you're old.

86,

that's just a number.

How many miles do you think you drive in a month?

It's hard to say.

I have a hard time saying no to a lot of good causes.

What I don't like is driving to Somerset, New Jersey.

It's called Demolition Derby.

Okay everybody, pull in with the old man.

Back to basics, I am a left-hander,

so I drop down on my right knee.

I will need help getting back.

The reason I'm on my knee

is because I want my arm out of the game.

We're gonna let the rod work.

You're gonna lift up into it, stop it and tap it.

Push your thumb down and we're casting.

That little pressure, pushing the thumb down here,

now you don't rotate and move.

I'm one of the few guys in the profession that don't mind

going on a stream and working for fish in front of people.

Joe makes fly fishing look so easy.

He's never failed taking fish with us and we've

put him in some extreme conditions during the 22 years

To be stewards of a stream,

you're gonna practice catch-release.

There's your first little trout of the year.

Hold on, I'll have another one.

And I don't like to handle the fish.

Now I know there's times you gotta show your buddy

that fish but you don't have to handle it though.

How many in here have never caught a fish?

How many in here want to catch a fish?

(laughing)

You're at the right place at the right time.

The Jesse Arnelle group of children

are mostly from the cities who never get

a chance to fish and enjoy the great outdoors.

Good one.
That's insane.

It'll be a good day if everybody come and fish.

This is my first time fishing.

My dad fishes all the time, so I wanted to give a try.

We got him, we got a fish.

This is fantastic.
This is amazing.

Wow.

Look at this.

Wow, your first trout?
My first trout.

Oh, what a beauty. Look at the pretty colors.

Yes. Oh my gosh, this is just amazing.

I'm just like in a whole 'nother space right now

because of my fish.
That's how I felt.

My first fish.

I hope teaching these kids something

about what the environment means to all of us

when they saw the beauty of this world around them,

the beauty of the fish that they caught.

Without clean water in which

these fish live, we're in bad shape.

You got a challenge.

You gotta take care of these streams that you so enjoy

and you gotta take care of this land 'cause there's a hell

of a lot of people out there that won't protect it.

(class applauding)

Here's one right here.
That's awesome.

That's a polyphemus moth.
Yeah, that's a good one.

Today I'm working with the Brookings School.

These children, they are learning

the ins and the outs of conservation

of the aquatic insects within the waters

and what they mean to the trout and its survival.

I would have loved to have had that opportunity.

It took me 80 years to figure out

the same thing that these kids are learning in one week.

Who, there's a nice big sculpin.

You know, that's strawberry shortcake for a trout.

Yeah.
I like this.

Yeah, me too.

Have you heard of Joe Humphreys before?

Yes I have, I've actually seen his display

in the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame down in Boiling Springs

and it's definitely a great honor

to be with a real living legend.

The brook trout serve as fabulous

bio-indicators for a lot of our mountain streams

and cold water streams here in Pennsylvania.

They're very sensitive to pollution.

A lot of the same streams that these

brook trout are inhabiting are the same

streams where we get our drinking water from.

So they really do serve as an early

detector of poor water quality for us.

How does it make

you feel to see these kids so excited?

I mean it has to remind you of you, right?

Oh my god, it does.

It takes me back to my childhood

and my feet would not have touched the ground

for probably a month, I would have been so excited.

So yeah, I understand these kids.

I understand where they're coming from.

When I was a young lad, I did not enjoy going to school.

Fisticuffs, yes, hard knocks, yes.

I became a problem.

Fishing was the catalyst that moved me

from the depth of despair into a whole new life.

The Christmas of 1941, my parents,

being so frustrated with their son, bought me

a book called "Just Fishing" written by Ray Bergman.

"Just Fishing" by Ray Bergman and Fred Everett.

That book turned my life around.

I wrote this so that nobody would steal my book

and I even have my phone number (laughs).

This very first chapter was so influential.

"My first experience trout fishing dates

back to the year of 1903 when I was a boy of 12.

I saw my first living trout in a brook.

I had been wandering through the woodlands near

my home and by some chance, had approached a pool

of a small brook without disturbing its occupants.

As I looked over the bank, I saw six spotted beauties

spanning their fins in the cool, clear water.

The sight of those fish

reacted on my nervous system strangely.

I did not know what they were but some

latent instinct within my being informed me

that they were game to be prized highly."

Now if the teacher were to ask me to write a paper,

now I had some direction and I would write maybe about the

brown trout or I'd write about how to fish with a wet fly.

Even look, I even put little X's where these flies were

because those were the flies I thought were important

and those were the ones I wanted to tie.

He had the real basic fundamentals

he had within these pages, I learned from this.

That book gave me a new start on life.

Hopefully my books,

I hope maybe they give somebody direction.

I'm most proud of my dad for who he is to other people.

It's not just that he's this famous fisherman.

Somebody can say to me, "My son got to meet your dad

for 10 minutes and it was a wonderful experience."

And that sums it up of who he is as a person.

Kids are the future of this wonderful sport.

Good morning, look at these guys right here.

This is a tough crew right here.

Somebody told me you took 47 fish yesterday, is that right?

Me?
(Joe laughs)

"Who, me?"

Today I'm in Lamar, Pennsylvania.

It's a beautiful sight up here.

To teach a youth fly fishing team.

You don't need heavy diameters if you cast right.

What you have to have is line

and leader control, so that's where we start.

You have to adjust for everything you do.

These children in the last two years,

they've won the Worlds Championships.

All right, we're ready to go.

You gotta remember, I'm a left-hander.

There's legendary people in the sport of fly fishing

and Joe is one of the last ones that is around

still helping and still doing things.

You know what he's talking is legit and it's gonna work.

These kids are really tuned in.

(relaxed guitar music)

They're so fun to teach.

I want that rod to stop right up and down, 12 o'clock.

Joe is phenomenal.

He is just upbeat, wants you to learn as a fly fisherman.

Wants you to get better.
Stay here with me.

He's gonna do

anything he can to make you better.

Okay, here we go.

Now this is where the game changes.

On a bow and arrow cast, your fly

should always be seven inches below your handle.

He teaches us.
There's your roll cast.

But then we teach everybody else

and you may talk to a guy who lives in North Carolina,

who lives all the way in California but

they know his methods from somebody who

learned it from somebody who learned it from him.

It just keeps getting passed down.

When he does something, he wants to do it well

but he really has so many different talents.

He boxed for the Navy and at Penn State

and here's something a lot of people don't know,

he was a very good ice skater and he taught

advanced ice skating as a Phys Ed course at Penn State.

When my mother taught beginning ice skating.

So at any given time, you could go up to the rink

and find both of them teaching a class.

He actually was in an ice show where he did

an ice dance with his fishing rod, which was amazing.

Joe Humphreys.

(crowd cheering)

(dramatic guitar music)

There's nothing he doesn't do.

Even at 86, even when he's tired.

He is still in better shape than most people I know who

are in their 40s and 50s and pretty much every morning,

he'll go down in the basement and do his crunches

and his pushups, he calls it I believe pumping steel.

I still pump steel.

I work out.

Don't sit and watch the tube.

Stay busy.

Move.

(mid tempo guitar music)

Awesome.

When I was fighting, I used to train with rope.

It's not a surprise I think that he's still as agile

physically as he is because he did all of these sports.

Like I said, it wasn't a passing fad.

It wasn't a membership at a gym for a year.

This was a way of life.

He taught almost every Phys Ed course

there was at Penn State including racquetball,

weightlifting, personal defense, judo and bowling.

I mean he was a really good wrestler too

and wrestling coach and was well-known for that as well.

He wrestled for Penn State and in the Navy.

He's already inducted into

the United States Wrestling Hall of Fame.

He still goes into the room today because

he was Penn State's Assistant Wrestling Coach.

Look at that strength.

These arms have reeled in a few fish, probably what?

When you're ready.
I'd say 10 fish?

I can't give you that, not with the camera running.

These are my heroes,

Cael Sanderson, Casey Cunningham, Jake Varner,

Cody Sanderson.
Dang, strong hips.

Not only the finest coaches in this nation today,

they're teaching these kids moral values,

they're teaching 'em how to face life.

What you do on the mat as a coach or a teacher in

the classroom extends far beyond the mat or the classroom.

It extend into their lives.

I wrestled for Joe Humphreys from 1965 to '69.

Okay, Grant you're here and you're sitting down.

That is a great shot.

A monumental man in my life.

He came in at a time when we needed some direction.

The direction I was on, it was quitting school.

If you guys wouldn't have wrestled today, I would have

been saying "Oh, I wonder what cell the Packers are in?"

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I look at him and I think

there should've been three of 'em.

This man changed my life when he said,

"You're gonna be a great one."

Started me in a direction that was so powerful

that even when I made the wrong choice,

his words stayed with me.

I give him credit all the time.

I think my dad has always followed his calling.

They were different things at different times

and he has always known that fishing

is what his life's work is to be.

Choosing between wrestling and fly fishing,

it was a decision that I knew would really affect my life.

Fishing I guess you might say was in my blood.

I would never discard it.

It was always there and it had to be there.

But when I found out that I could make money

in the five fishing world collegiately

as an instructor at Penn State, there was no choice.

I gave up wrestling and continued in the fly fishing world.

(relaxed country guitar music)

My mentor George Harvey, he was a hero.

He was an angler that had more insights than anybody

I think in the United States or the world.

He created a tuck cast that got the nips to fish.

They created fly tying clinics, he was a pioneer.

I learned so much from him and we were also great friends.

When George Harvey retired from

the angling program at Penn State in 1970,

then I chose to go that direction

and teach the fly fishing courses at Penn State University.

Penn State angling class started

as a noncredit class in 1934.

It was not an accredited class until 1947.

And I was there 19 years.

How lucky I've been to make

the love of my life my profession.

There, that's a great shot.

With fly fishing, you're imitating insects.

You're imitating the food chain

in which the trout feed upon.

This is a heldermike, that's a larval stage

of an insect and is lunch and dinner for trout.

How many aspects of this fly fishing game are there?

So many.

This is a stonefly. It has two wing cases and two tails.

This nymph that you see right now,

they crawl from the stream bottom,

crawl up on the vegetation or on the rocks and fly away.

There are so many insects that they inhale.

This is a Caddis Pupa, C-A-D-D-I-S.

They build this case around them and it's an amazing thing.

We can tie these, imitate them and they catch fish.

He's wider and lighter and so the fly

that I'm imitating is the dark part is the case

and the little white is the head coming out

like the caddis is crawling out, this is a good imitation.

That's another part about the game that's so much fun

is that you can find this stuff on the bottom of the rocks

and then you go back to the vice and you tie a fly,

tie and you tie until you get exactly what you

think it is and then you go out and try it and it works.

To catch a fish on something that you made with

your own hand to imitate a glorious little insect,

it's a great feeling.

Isn't nature wonderful?

(relaxed guitar music)

When I'm fishing with people, one thing I say

to them at one point during the day, "Look up."

You've been staring at the water

from the moment we made the first cast.

I like to stop and live the moment.

One of the most beautiful sounds in the spring

to me is a red-winged blackbird and its song.

Or it can simply be the change of the clouds above.

It can simply be the sun reflecting on a log

and those are cherished moments.

The good Lord has given us such a beautiful place to fish.

When you don't take time to recognize

and enjoy it and appreciate it and be thankful,

then you're missing part of the game.

(relaxed guitar, violin music)

This was a gristmill built back in 1822.

I picked it up 50 years ago,

tried to put it back together and it's most unique

because it has the water running underneath

the living room to a pond with trout in it, I love it.

My brother Dick lived in the adjoining property

and I thought how nice someday it would be

to be with my brother and restore that old mill.

What a guy he was.

He was in the Merchant Marines in World War II.

When he came back, we started to fish together,

we started to do things together.

We called each other the brothers

and he was instrumental in helping me with this home.

At the tender age of 47,

he was killed in a tractor accident

in the field adjacent to me and it was a terrible loss.

He missed his brother terribly

and his mother died when he was only about

college age and he was very close to his mother

and he gets very upset easily with death

and it's easy for us to all say "Oh,

well you have all of us, we're all still here."

But having his wife go before him,

which he never, ever thought would happen, he never

thought would happen and they never planned for that.

It wasn't supposed to happen.

He was five years older. They were both in great shape.

So he's having a very hard time still after a year

accepting that she's gone and going on without her, yeah.

Gloria was my wife. We had 56 wonderful years.

We were on a camping trip, it was on the Loyalsock River

and I'm helping her up on a boulder with me.

Without her, I would have never

developed into any kind of a man.

She was my strong right arm.

She is the driving force.

She is my agent. She is just about everything.

She fished too.

When he proposed to her, only Joe Humphreys would do this,

he put the ring in a fishing license

and I believe presented it to her that way.

She figured out a long time ago that if you can't beat 'em,

join 'em and she knew that there was no

holding him back and that that was his passion

and she was by his side quite a bit on the stream.

My mom, she just was this shining star

and she brought out the best in all of us.

I was so lucky.

The memories come back so strong.

Just stay there and read or whatever,

just fall asleep and I thought I have to do something.

She said "Focus on something."

"Oh, somewhere in this favored land,

the sun is shining bright, bands are playing

somewhere and somewhere, hearts are light.

Somewhere men are laughing and somewhere

children shout but there is no joy in Mudville,

mighty Casey has struck out."

Gloria died a year ago, May 20th.

It was a hard day

acknowledging the year mark that she left us.

It was appropriate to be at the Inn because

we had been there with her shortly after her diagnosis.

The Aaronsburg Inn is where Denny

and I stayed when we fished Penns Creek each year.

Denny and I were there when we found out that

Gloria had cancer and she can't be cured.

It was gone too far

and so I had a bit of a breakdown

the last time we were there.

I'm all right.

(soft, somber music)

With Gloria passing,

there's me trying to provide support to Joe now.

Ironically I think most people including myself

would have looked at getting out on a stream as being

a part of the healing process and initially Joe withdrew.

He did not want to be on a stream, he did not want to fish.

He was suffering too much.

Then I got the phone call.

"Let's go fishing."

(relaxed tempo guitar music)

♪ Hollow to the touch ♪

♪ Make mischief as your witness ♪

There you, there you go.

Oh, that's a better fish.

(Denny laughs)

Yeah, that's a good fish.

I saw the color on that guy.

Oh boy, I'll take him.
Very nice, huh?

Gloria would be happy. She loved it when we went fishing.

(relaxed ensemble music)

♪ With frozen feet I move ♪

♪ The winter brings anew ♪

The secret of life is having something

exciting to look forward to, that is the secret of life

and fly fishing is that, you're going fishing.

90% of the time when we fish together,

I'm not fishing, I'm just standing next to him.

Why would I possibly want to be 50 feet down the stream

doing my thing when the living legend is right there?

Yay.
Yay.

Hey.

(relaxed ensemble music)

Well I'll tell you, we couldn't have had

a better start than we did, it's been a good half hour.

There is a sense of healing with fly fishing

and this sport has come back and helped him heal too.

This is one of the last stands

of virgin timber in Central Pennsylvania.

It's one of my favorite spots.

I'm a tree hugger.

These were the game trails

and those were the trails that the Indians followed.

These trails later on became roads, highways.

I love the sound of this little stream.

I love the sound of the water, it's therapy for me.

How picturesque, how beautiful.

What a gift to be here, just to witness this.

(relaxed guitar music)

Let's eat.

It's almost hot dog time, it's getting closer and closer.

Cheers.
Cheers, Denny.

Pretty amazing lunch spot.
Yeah.

I've had lunch here with Gloria

and we've had some memorable times here.

Walked the forest trail and reminisce and plan

our future and talk about the good times and what adventures

we may find ahead of us and the moral of the story is

enjoy your mate as much as you can while you can

because they can go quickly.

I'm very lucky to have lived this long.

So I'm very happy to face another day.

Jack, Joe Humphreys.

We're going to Pennsburg to shoot for the veterans today.

Okay, talk to you later.

(relaxed guitar music)

How'd you do that?

I fell at night.

That's why I don't fish at night by myself much anymore.

Take this along, let that dry and hope it works.

I'm out of here.

I have volunteered with Project Healing Waters

for many years and there are many chapters and units.

They'll be having breakfast but they won't want

to get down on the stream too early with this fog.

Are we here, are we ready?

(relaxed harmonica music)

All right.
There he is.

I made it.

This is hard to see but that's the flak jacket

I was wearing when I got shot, my buddy took that picture.

Whoa, thank God you're here.

Thank God you're all here.

Fly fishing's the greatest therapy in the world.

These waters and the fish

they're catching within, it's a healing process.

Fly fishing for me has been a way for me

to concentrate and to focus on something

because I have a very active and racing mind

with PTSD and it's hard for me to relax.

I can get out of a bad state

of mind and reel myself back in.

When did you get into this game?

When I was 10 years old, my father introduced me to it.

Oh, neat and you had some good times with your dad?

Yes sir.
Isn't that wonderful?

Let it drift.

Pull, ha, ha, ha.

I see another one, ah, ha, ha.

All right, all right.

We're wading these rocks, think

how many thousands of years they've been there.

Oh my god, now you might have

to adjust your casts just a little bit.

One of the things that'll really help you on this one,

the rod tip doesn't go far, it just goes way up high.

Just two inches, okay?

And then I shock and then I drop it and it just stacks it.

Then it's just floating on its own

and all that leader's doing the job for me, okay?

Catch me a fish.

(relaxed guitar music)

A big fish, a big fish!

Yo,

keep him, yay.

Oh, what a lovely fish.

Whoa.

I am gonna tear my fingers to pieces but I don't care.

Do you have us?

You just made my whole-
You made my whole year.

Oh, Joe.
Whoa.

You see the way he smashed that?

You'd never think that piece would hold a fish, would you?

Penns Creek.

On a dry fly.

Thank you so much.

Georgie, I am having the time of my life. I'm so excited.

This is a day I will never forget.

♪ Slowly serving ♪

♪ The earth and wild in heaven ♪

♪ Excited about learning ♪

♪ Excitements found on high ♪

♪ From loving what you do ♪

Sometimes I feel that

the streams and rivers run through me.

♪ Stay your hand ♪

And the flow of the waters, it's been my soul,

it's been my heart and I want to protect it.

♪ Something we're fighting for ♪

♪ Means that someone's standing tall ♪

In Pennsylvania, the top industry is agriculture.

The second is tourism and people come to Pennsylvania

to fish our beautiful streams, hunt in our woodlands

and enjoy the beauty of Pennsylvania.

Economically, it's smart to save what we have

and fly fishing is a big part of it.

All of these streams bring people from

all over the world to fish here and unfortunately,

there are so many threats that are facing the streams.

The drive for the Marcellus Shale and the disruptive

activities of strip mining can ruin a lot of waters.

It's a never ending battle

and we have to stay on our toes to keep our waters clean.

Here's the thing about Joe,

he's mister conservation as far as I'm concerned.

Anything that comes off the roads gets dumped

right into here which gets dumped into

the Duck Pond gets dumped into Thompson Run.

Which dumps into Spring Creek, right.

We'll improve habitat in the stream

but if we don't get a handle on stormwater-

If you don't have water quality, what good is the habitat?

Right, exactly.
You don't have any trout.

Exactly.

My major conservation effort

is Thompson Spring and the Duck Pond.

This is why they call Spring Creek Spring Creek.

There are a myriad of streams along its course.

This is one of the main ones.

Thompson Run is a big, beautiful spring.

It is a major producer of cold water

that gives Spring Creek its life.

This is Thompson Spring that comes right out

of the bowels of the earth right up through in here.

This is the future of Spring Creek right there.

Just adjacent to it is a pond called the Duck Pond.

The Duck Pond is a storm sewer runoff holding pond.

You have chemicals, mercury, oils, every contaminant

imaginable that flows from the streets of State College

and surrounding areas going into the Duck Pond.

In the early 50s, they relocated the highway and that

relocation pushed Thompson Spring into the Duck Pond,

pushing all of that contaminated water into Spring Creek.

See where the arrow is, the turning arrow?

That's where the stream was.

We had brook trout, brown trout.

When it rained, we'd run into

the iron furnace to get out of the rain.

So it's hard to believe that the trout stream was there.

They just took the whole thing and just shoved it.

The water temperature started to climb

to the 80s and 90s, killing the fish.

Spring Creek went down as a major

trout producer and as a viable great fishery.

Seeing its demise was heartbreaking

because I had so many wonderful childhood memories.

I couldn't stand it and so I said what can I do myself?

What can one man do?

In the early 70s, I pulled five guys together,

we sat at this table right here

and formed Spring Creek Trout Unlimited.

We determined that we would divert

that big spring back around the Duck Pond.

We are at the top of the Duck Pond.

What you're seeing right here is the diversion

as it goes up the whole way paralleling the Duck Pond

and to the right is the spring, the water from

the spring, coming down through into the Thompson Run.

It was a nightmare to divert Thompson Run.

This concrete wall is what we had.

You can see the thickness of it here.

With an air hammer, a jackhammer,

we punched a hole through it.

Then I needed a huge pipe to go through

the hole that we were making to divert the spring.

The water flows through and comes down the other side.

Spring Creek came back on its feet.

It was a major undertaking for a few crazy guys

that didn't know when to quit, we beat the odds.

That had to be incredible

to watch all of your efforts actually happening.

It was a dream coming true.

I saw the salvation of Spring Creek.

The retention dike has eroded.

A good third of Thompson Spring is now

entering the Duck Pond, which we've gotta correct.

People are aware of what is happening now.

The guys from the Spring Creek Chapter of Trout Unlimited,

the University, they are backing me to get all

the trees and all the vegetation cut off the dike,

brush out the area and make it

accessible so that you can reconstruct it.

It takes a lot of thought and a lot

of effort from a lot of people to get it done

and this is what I'm hoping, that it can happen.

(relaxed guitar, flute music)

One of the most famous paintings

in the history of this country is right here.

I'm sure it would probably go for millions today.

This picture right here is the westward movement,

the covered wagon and the oxen

and this was done by Joe Humphreys,

his name is there, in 1939.

We might put that on "Antique Roadshow."

(Joe laughs)

Now here is an interesting, this is an interesting,

in fact this is my grandfather, Thomas Humphreys.

My grandfather was in the Civil War.

This is the famous Bucktail unit.

They were the snipers, the sharpshooters.

My grandfather was captured outside of the swamps of

Richmond and was held in Belle Isle Prison for three months.

Very few people survived three months

at Belle Isle because there was nothing to eat.

Then he went on a prisoner exchange and went back

into battle and he bought in South Mountain

and then at Antietam, he got down in behind a stump,

eased himself up over the stump to take

another shot and a bullet came and caught him

in the mouth and came out his neck.

He was 50 years old when my father was born.

He survived and that's why I'm here.

I'd say the Humphreys are a pretty strong breed.

Yeah, I think we have some grit.

I'm not one to quit and I have staying power.

Do you care if I fish up above you here?

Are you Mr. Humphreys?
I am.

I'd be honored just to watch.

Well, thank you.

I'm tenacious until my goal is fulfilled.

That's a deep hole.

Will he do it? Some say yes.

That he has positiveness.

Nice fish, I want to hold this one.

Beautiful.

Look at the colors, the stripes.

Nice fish.

Yeah, but he got my nymph.

I knew I should have doubled the knot.

Live and learn, Joseph.

We have another shot here.

Here's a parr rainbow, look at the parr marks on it.

Ain't he a beautiful little thing?

I am still going to take a 20 pound brown

if I have to come back from another world to do it.

I will find a 20 pound brown.

Through the years of knowing Joe,

he only knows one speed, 110%, give it all you got.

There is no quit in that guy at all.

When I was filming on the White River

and on the Little Red in Arkansas,

John Wilson was with me and I hooked what

we thought could have been a new fly rod World Record.

It was an absolutely huge fish, well over 20 pounds.

It was over 30 inches.
Oh, huge.

I saw him roll in the light and-

The memory still is burning within.

It's been 10 years and I'm going back to Arkansas.

It's called determination.

I'm gonna catch that damn fish.

(dramatic mid tempo drumbeat)

Let me show you something.

In 1992, Rip Collins took this 40 pound,

four ounce brown trout out of the Little Red River.

I've hooked huge fish in this river on two occasions.

Both times, they beat me.

But a biologist told me, "Either in the Little Red

or the White, there could be a 50 pound brown."

A 38 pound brown trout would be a fly rod record.

I'm still pursuing this record.

To take a fish like this would be a dream of a lifetime.

(upbeat guitar music)

♪ It's one wicked road, you're gonna make it right ♪

♪ You've found your way to go, you're gonna take that ride ♪

♪ The miles are way too long, the stars are way too bright ♪

♪ You're gonna wait too long to run away tonight ♪

The water is extremely high, it's flood stage.

When my friends inquired at the local tackle shop,

they said "Go home, the river is unfishable."

We got a fish.

Wow. That is a beautiful fish, Joe.

It's pretty but it's not big.

We need big, we need big.

Yeah, we got some weight on this one.

There's a nice fish.

Come on Humph, come on, come on.

When I'm nymphing and I'm into the deeper, heavy water,

lots of times I'll simply not adjust what

I'm fishing as much as I do the length

of the leader and it will make a difference.

That'll get a little more time on the bottom naturally.

Let's get a big one.

♪ Put a light on ♪

♪ Me and my blue sky's playing ♪

♪ Put a light on ♪

Wow, Joe.
That's a minnow.

We're looking for a 20 pound brown.

I'm gonna try to get down on the bottom.

Take it, go on.

I got a fish.

Oh yeah.

♪ Gonna make it right ♪

Nicely done.
I just have a feeling

that it could happen.

♪ Gonna make it right ♪

I thought for a second it might've been-

Oh, I thought it might've been too.

You can't be discouraged in

the fishing game or no matter what you do in life.

Sometimes we don't understand why things

aren't going smoothly but nothing is easy.

You have to be flexible.

Looks good. That streamer looks really good.

Let's see what they do with this egg.

If you're persistent and stay

with it, it'll pay off in time.

Not a bad fish.

I knew there was a reason I didn't sleep in today.

(soft guitar music)

Now you go and tell your daddy that I'm here.

What are you doing out there?
Catching fish.

You're going down the river.

Is that Joe?
How you doing?

I'm well.
I am well too.

I caught a trout.

(Joe laughs)

He knew me, didn't he? He called me Joe.

(birds chirping)

Hey James, good morning.
Good morning, sir.

How are ya, buddy?
Good.

You're on your feet and you're moving, that's good.

This is December 15th, our last day

for the quest of the 20 pound brown.

So far we've been shortchanged

but with the luck of the draw and any luck at all,

we may take a heavyweight, which is always the quest.

Thank you, John. Thank you.

We're gonna give it our best shot.

(boat engine revving)

I'm not quitting.

I'm after that 20 pound brown and it could be in front me.

You never know when that fish can be caught.

(soft guitar music)

We were working the shoals very successfully

and we were continuing to catch fish.

First nibble of the day, Joe.

But as the day was coming to an end, we made one more run.

That was a good fish.

It's getting pretty dark.

I had worked all day and this was literally

the last moment before we had to go back.

My fly is a large sculpa,

it's drifting and I'm lifting and it stops.

I feel the head shake.

If the fish goes upstream, they're usually pretty good.

It's a heavy fish.

This was the trout, this was my dream trout.

Yeah, that's a good fish, this is a happy fish.

This is the fish of a lifetime.

This fish is so heavy, I cannot move it from the bottom.

I've gotta stop this fish.

(anxious ensemble music)

There's a stump in there somewhere.

Is he still on?
I don't know.

Huh?
Go above him.

Is he running into the weeds?

He's got you in something.

It's gone (beep).

Wow.

He took me down into the weeds.

Holy (beep), that was a big fish.

A big fish like that, they know the bottom.

He went under, there was a stump or a log

or something up there or the grass he went back under.

I thought we had him, I really did.

When you can't lift a fish, when you can't turn a fish,

I've never had a fish that I couldn't turn.

I couldn't turn that one.

I couldn't put any more pressure

on him because he was playing me.

But that's something that you hook a fish

that big, you don't even get to see him.

But you could feel him.

Oh my yes, yeah, I did.

That trout, if we had landed it,

would than not have been a real sport spectacular?

And we had the chance because we hooked the fish.

God, just heavyweight, just like a log.

Just like a freakin' log.

It was like hooking onto the Trident submarine and it's

running around in the ocean and you have no control.

To take big fish, you can do what you know to do

but you have to have some luck too.

You were really close.

I'm sorry.

That was the fish.
I know, I know.

I'm heartsick for you.

(soft guitar music)

(relaxed tempo drumbeat)

One of the things that I've done since childhood

I guess was to decorate under the Christmas tree.

Rather than trains or Christmas gifts,

my father put together something under

the tree and so I continued the tradition.

I'd get the moss from the forest and it keeps rather well.

It's the American Indians

and the animals that were here pre-Columbus.

I've collected the animals and the Indians over many years.

Some of those little figures

are probably 70, 80 years old or older.

At that time in early America,

we had the buffalo and the Indian here

and he's maybe trying to catch this rabbit.

Well, the Indians have to have water and let's face it,

their livelihood depended upon the fish within

and somewhere in my lineage, there must have been

some Indian blood because I sure do connect with

the American Indian and what he went through to survive.

I get a kick out of doing it, it's fun.

I guess that's still the little boy in me.

(soft guitar music)

A lot of these are going down and this is coming up.

In the off season when I'm not fishing,

hunting is what I really enjoy.

There's a couple there.

Come on this way, come on baby.

You have a lot of thoughts when you're hunting.

I think about how fortunate I am to be here, to do this.

It's hard to believe how time, how quickly it passes.

I know that I'm 87 and how fast my life is scurrying on.

I'm here at the top of a ridge.

I was happy and thrilled to be able to climb it

but how many more years will I climb this ridge?

Hopefully a few more.

At this late stage in my life, I'm still building memories.

Whether it be that big buck someday or simply

an eight inch brook trout on a wonderful mountain stream,

you always have those things to look forward to.

There's a real purpose in life up here.

I guess that's the solitary aspects.

It encompasses all of those things.

These are my reflections

when it's awfully quiet and nothing moves.

(relaxed country guitar music)

♪ Remember when our songs were just like prayers ♪

♪ Like Gospel hymns that you called in the air ♪

♪ Come down, come down sweet reverence ♪

♪ Unto my simple house and ring ♪

♪ And ring ♪

(relaxed country guitar, violin music)

Okay, are we ready?

I better get the new hat on my old head.

It's cold out there.

Turn on the damn heater.

January, February and March can be long, cold months.

Here we are in the winter,

we've got snow but I also have cabin fever.

♪ Were we the belly of the beast or the sword that fell ♪

There's times when I just have to be on that stream.

I'm going fishing.

♪ Come to me clear and cold ♪

♪ On some sea ♪

(relaxed country violin, guitar music)

♪ Watch the world spinning waves ♪

♪ Like some machine ♪

There's nothing like

a beautiful day on a trout stream.

It's something that in those cold winter months,

it keeps you alive and it keeps you coming back.

♪ I threw stones at the stars but the whole sky fell ♪

♪ Now I'm covered up in straw, belly up on the table ♪

♪ and I drank and sang and passed in the stable ♪

There's one in this corner

back over in here if I can get it.

(relaxed country guitar, violin music)

We got a fish.

But to catch a fish like this, yeah,

this is the cure for cabin fever.

How was that?

Without water quality, you don't have fish

and they have to have a food chain, they have to eat.

So everything we can do to keep

the contaminants away from the clean water,

we have to do it and it starts right here.

It starts at home, it starts with Thompson Run.

Good morning.
How are you?

Look at me. What do you think?

You look good.

There are trees growing in the diversion.

They have to be taken out of there

so that we can start the reconstruction of the dike.

If you can't see what has to be done, then it won't happen.

You're amazing, Joe.
A lot better than it was.

Do it this way, this is a dream come true to me.

That's a piece of the slag

right from out of the old iron furnace.

You can see it now.

It is mind-boggling what can happen when you have

a group pull together to do a job with the right equipment.

There we go there, there's the man right here.

This was a tangled mass of brush

that turned into a lovely area.

What a wonderful day it has been, how much we accomplished.

Stage three will be to get the machinery

to the site to further reconstruct the dike.

There's a lot of work to be done and if I have

to be that driving force along with TU, so be it.

My father does wear his heart on his sleeve.

He treats everyone like family and he has so many friends.

His house, it's Grand Central Station.

Oh my god, anybody comes in now.

It's always been fun.

At any given time, people are at the door,

the phone's ringing nonstop, somebody stops in for a visit,

somebody comes for happy hour.

It's happy hour time.

I've said to him before,

if you judge a person's character by the company

they keep, then he is the wealthiest man I know.

That's a filet.

We will turn these six minutes on a side.

You want 'em medium-rare.

Every year the night before the first day of trout season,

a group of us have a major happy hour and a major feast.

Everybody come out to the dining room table.

This is the kickoff of the 2016 season.

Here's to the opening day of trout season.

Take a bite of the strawberries

and the whipped cream and then chug with the champagne.

Yeah.

We start in The Corner Room at eight o'clock

and have breakfast when everybody else is fishing.

Two pancakes and a side of bacon.

And then we go to The Bald Eagle.

The randoms are popping off I imagine.

And I've got a secret weapon I bought yesterday.

Ooh boy.
What do you think?

Which one?
I like that one.

I've been fishing every year

the first day since I was six years old.

This is my 81st opening day.

♪ Oh, the time the ship broke down ♪

♪ You told me I was meek ♪

♪ You rise above misty circles and see ♪

Ah, there's my first hit.

♪ And the sky was a monster ♪

You taking a rest?
I wouldn't miss

this opportunity to see you fish.

Oh, true to heaven.

(relaxed guitar music)

♪ As here it's cutthroat with a lean lens ♪

♪ And dancing a torrent of little woes ♪

That was fun, we caught some fish, okay.

Come on, children.

We fish only a couple hours because

we have to be to the Hot Dog House by noon.

I'm ready for the Hot Dog House.

Everybody then ordered a Mr. Hot Dog with everything.

Jeff, he wimped out and had a salad.

Now we fish Spring Creek

and now we wish parts of the Bald Eagle.

Andy has a fish.
A thing of beauty.

Thanks, Joe.

You're enjoying a cigar, where's Joe at?

Right down yonder and he keeps catching fish.

He's always the last one off the stream.

The oldest and the last one.

I've had 81 opening days of fishing.

81 years.

Some of these trees aren't 81 years.

I don't know of one dog that's 81 years old.

I don't think there's a chicken that's 81 years old.

Oh, I think there's a chicken.

Show me, Ron.

You know what time it is?

Oh, it's a quarter to 6:00, we've gotta go home.

This is frightening.

To Jim's we must go.

Give me a break, all right.

Here's to tradition.
Here's to tradition.

Here's to Joe.
Our Joe.

Gracious host.

All of us are gonna struggle

and work to survive until 2017.

All right.
Oh yeah.

The streams of PA are waiting for you.

Okay.
Thank you very much.

Good, good.
I appreciate that.

God love your heart, you bet.

That is so cool, I'm very proud of you.

Thank you very much.
You're doing a great job.

Appreciate it.

And I don't want you to get hurt.

No.
Okay.

Yeah, me neither.

We need to get a group shot.
Yeah.

As you know, one thing I love to do,

it's gonna be tradition, we're gonna start now,

I want to night fish tonight.

Jesus.
No, I'm serious.

I want to night fish.

You are serious?

Yeah, we are going back and I know there's

one spot in Spring Creek I think we can take fish.

What about the cookers, remember?

It worked, oh no, oh my god, we're all exhausted.

Why are we? Please no.

This is our first day of trout season.

It is not so much fishing, it's just bringing together

at the different eating establishments

as well as fun on the stream.
You were convincing.

Yeah, hey Tom, I might get an actor or anything.

Yeah.
Yeah.

(soft guitar music)

If people today had to go through

what you did to figure out how to catch fish,

I don't think people would be doing it today.

If you let failure stop you,

you would have stopped long ago.

Yeah, that's what makes it fun.

Those fish are not gonna beat me.

No matter what happens,

I'm gonna beat these fish, I'm gonna make it happen.

Like the Clint Eastwood movie where

the Indian said "I'm going to endeavor to persevere."

Ooh trout, you're dead.

You poor a little fellows.

The Green Drake is a magnificent insect.

One of the largest mayflies

we have here in Central Pennsylvania.

It's an indicator of your water quality

and the Green Drake is adverse to pollution.

A lot of streams don't have Green Drakes

because they don't have the water quality.

The Green Drake hatch happens once a year.

I call it the Memorial Day Classic.

It's hard to predict when it's gonna happen

and not all fly fishermen are successful.

It's such a phenomenon because the life cycle

of that fly really stirs the fish into activity.

It's one of my favorite times to fish.

(upbeat guitar music)

A mighty stream, isn't it?

Isn't it beautiful?
It's absolutely,

what a clean stretch.

You know what I've heard you say? "Look up."

Isn't that beautiful?
That's awesome.

That's pretty good, it's gonna get more.

They're gonna get lower.

♪ Take that back on ♪

♪ Laying near the lights ♪

♪ For the nights of the northern lodges ♪

♪ There's a border road ♪

Nice fish, Humph.

That's a wild brown.

♪ And the neighborly sleeping in a coffin ♪

If only we could all do this at 87.

With Green Drakes, stand in

this stream and throw flies like that.

Yeah.
Life is good, Humph.

Life is good.

You can follow the hatch but it's also great when

you hit the hatch in its later period of production.

we just happened to really nail it right.

Welcome to the Green Drake hatch.

♪ He's a legend ♪

This is what we have been waiting for.

This is when the flies are in profusion

and the fish are ready to feed.

It's an exciting time of the year.

I'm going out and catching fish.

♪ Would you promise me ♪

We don't have enough stuff to bust 'em

but I think I might be able to take one underneath.

But let's just get one good fish.

♪ And it learns to live ♪

♪ Hold the keys to a Cupid fire she will never find ♪

There we go.
Nice.

There we go, this is good, this is what I need.

That's awesome.

I'm turning it.

(relaxed rock music)

Yeah.
That a boy, Humph.

Yeah, I'll take him.

♪ Set sail ♪

A nice 15, 16 inch trout took the fly.

Yeah baby, that's all I needed was one fish.

Green Drakes flying, fish on.

It's a good night, Humph.
It's a great night.

What could we ask for that was any better than that?

That was as good as it gets I think.

As you grow older, you appreciate what you have more

and I think trout streams are fountains of youth.

It's that challenge to try to take that fish.

It's always a learning situation.

I will never lose that excitement

of going on a trout stream.

Every day on the stream is an adventure and as a teacher,

if I've passed some good things onto other people,

not only the how-to, the nuts

and the bolts of the fly fishing game

but an appreciation of nature itself,

that's what it's all about.

(upbeat ensemble music)

♪ I ain't trading my youth for no suit and jacket ♪

♪ I ain't giving my freedom for your money and status ♪

The person that

made this possible was Joe Humphreys.

There is gonna be a day that's gonna

have a Green Drake hatch on Spring Creek.

You can never anticipate which way your life will take you,

the people you will meet along the way,

the journeys you'll go on.

You have to follow your passions in life.

That's what it's all about.

♪ Growing old too quickly ♪

♪ And I don't wanna go, so how am I supposed ♪

♪ To slow it down so I can figure out who I am ♪

Through my life of fly fishing,

there were a culmination of moments that

cast memories such as a cast in a thicket,

a jumble of brush on a mountain stream.

When a cast seems impossible, then it happens.

To see the fly land and bounce jauntily for a brief moment,

then disappear as a brook trout inhales it,

this is the moment down deep in my gut,

a feeling of satisfaction, joy and contentment.

The melody continues to play through my heart and soul.

It's orchestrated by the water

and the wind moving the hemlock past.

Right now age-wise, I'm 17, 18, I'm having a blast.

Beautiful casting.

Nicely done.
I know.

When you were four years old, this was how we did it.

Good, good.

Beautiful cast.

She is following the wonderful

casting tradition of all of you.

How many tickets you got in there?

I use this cut a lot when I fly.

We are going to land where there's unbelievable

ground trout that will be the new fly rod record.

♪ We're all gonna die one day ♪

We learned from last year, didn't we?

♪ Some of us surviving, some of us just roaming ♪

♪ Some of us just hoping the world will move more slowly ♪

♪ Some of us alive but we're all gonna die one day ♪

♪ Some of us surviving, some of us just roaming ♪

♪ Some of us just hoping the world will move more slowly ♪

25 degrees at 4:00 in the morning.

You can't be a wimp and be a night fisherman.

Good fish.

Look at the camera.

♪ Growing old too quickly ♪

That was a big fish.

♪ Slow it down so I can figure out who I am ♪

(birds cawing)

These waters are filled with miles of endless memories.

They're my childhood, my family, my career

and my inspiration to pick up a fly rod.

The Springs, they're my heart,

their waters the course of my life story and the trout

the friends I want to see flourish for a lifetime to come.

(relaxed country guitar music)

Hold on here.

We're gonna do these last two.
Okay.

Okay?

"I had the honor of fishing on Pennsylvania

Creek with Joe about nine or 10 years ago.

This was a birthday gift from my dear wife.

I spent a couple of days with a Jedi, Joe as I called him.

He not only taught me something about nymph fishing but

he shared his soul with the love he has for creeks, streams,

rivers, fish and the conservation of all of the above.

It was a masterclass in living life in harmony,

respect and humility for one's environment.

I came away from this retreat cleansed and invigorated

and had learned a couple of fly fishing techniques.

I shall never forget him and that weekend.

Oh, and we caught some beautiful trout as well,

all released back to those crystal waters."

Who said that?

Who said this?

Liam Neeson.

Oh, did he?

Liam Neeson said this?

Oh, he's such a wonderful man.

I taught him to tie a fly

and he tied a beautiful dry fly, a collector's item.

Jedi Joe, (exhaling) that caught me right in here.

Then wiggle and then it comes down, okay?

(relaxed country guitar music)

(drone swooshing)

What the hell was that?

(people laughing)

It was a mill, we grew up in a mill.

That's the excuse for my odd behavior.

Don't you think she sounds, you sound like dad.

We do have similar

facial expressions, I must say.

You can go up the stairs up there and pet the bear.

I wrestled a bear about that size.

He hooked my leg and I couldn't get out.

Joe Humphreys here.
Denny and I

had a good day in the stream, I hooked two trout.

I don't know what he was doing

in there but I hooked that beaver.

I don't know too many guys that can hook land beavers

and so I can put that on my resume as a beaver catcher.

A nationally-known expert on the art

of fly fishing, a gold medalist in our hearts,

ladies and gentlemen, fisherman Joe Humphreys.

(crowd cheering)