Thanks for all you've done for us, Dave Inks

My first meeting with Dave Inks was inconsequential. It was somewhere in the mid-seventies and my young family was attending a sportsman's show in California's Bay Area. A number of fly fishing greats would be there and I was eager to meet some of them.

My young son Jay and I visited Randall Kauffman's booth, where Randall graciously signed a copy of his new book for Jay.

A few minutes later we were in the Creative Sports booth, the first mega-fly shop, manufacturing and wholesale conglomerate in the industry. As one industry insider put it, "Every fly shop owner in the United States should pay a surcharge to Creative Sports." Creative Sports paved the way, and in many cases provided the products that kept them in business.

The shop, owned and run by fly tying legend Andre Puyans and tackle innovator Dave Inks, changed the shape of fly fishing retail and spurred the growth of the sport.

I met Puyans, and we talked fly tying materials, and showed some of my freshly-tied Caddis Variants to Dave Inks. That was our first meeting.

Both were instrumental in the liftoff for Dennis Black's new company, Umpqua Feather Merchants, which pioneered the concept of having high-quality flies designed by American tyers tied overseas. Domestic tyers could not keep up with an existing demand, and Umpqua was the first to fill that need, which in turn fueled the growth of the sport.

Dave Inks was a part of that.

He was also fascinated with fly tying materials and drove that consuming interest into procuring batches of the finest fly tying hackle being grown. I know - he made a lot of it available to me.

He helped set up Whiting hackle, now the world's largest grower, after Dr. Tom Whiting bought one then another of his competitors. Dave pushed the Whiting dyeing and grading systems over the top.

Dave went on to open his own posh retail shop called The Millpond in a suburb above the Santa Clara Valley, situated with a stream running through it. That shop was positioned to catch the wave of the Santa Clara Valley's transition from a pastoral expanse of row crop gardens and orchards to the megalith we know as Silicon Valley today.

Around that time I left teaching to open a fly shop in northern California. Dave Inks was still at Creative Sports when it became one of my key suppliers. Later, when I visited The Millpond, Dave had just redesigned a Danner hiking boot, transforming it into the best wading boot of its era. I was a dealer and we knew each other better by then, and he gave me a pair to field test.

I don't know where Dave learned to cast, but he learned well - his form was straight out of the west coast tournament school. He taught at the Fenwick Fly Fishing Schools for many years and you had to be good to qualify as one of their instructors.

Dave eventually got into saltwater fly fishing and helped design the Stutz Estuary and early Abel reels.

Look up those Inks-Stutz reels up on eBay today. They reveal an attention to quality that was always a Dave Inks trademark. You'll also note that among collectors today those reels are well-respected and bring a lofty price.

Fast forward: Dave and I both eventually moved to the Bitterroot Valley. By then he had a hand in a succession of products. His genius was that of taking an original design concept and reworking it, perfecting it and making it more functional for other flyfishers. The list of products he launched and people he helped is long.

His latest venture was probably the most fun: I remember him telling me of running his Waterstrider kickboat/raft hybrid down the Clark Fork, and honing in on big picky rainbows that other floaters in high-sided drift boats and rafts couldn't approach. Dave's low profile, one-man craft could sneak on those fish with practically no disturbance, and as a master caster, he could get his fly right where he wanted it.

As an accomplished angler Dave knew what he wanted and what would work in the tackle he used. His design sense permeates much of the tackle flyfishers use today - whether or not they're aware of it.

We lost Dave Inks on Aug. 31, 2024.

From this flyfisher, thanks, Dave.