Charlie Brooks was a great storyteller and angling writer. His “The Trout and the Stream” and “Larger Trout for the Western Fly Fisherman” were already classics when we were having dinner after a day of fishing in the early ‘80s.
We shared stories about people we both knew. The stories Charlie rolled off in his distinctive Texas drawl had me laughing so hard that I could barely finish my steak.
Charlie was a couple of decades my senior, a hulk of a man and slightly hunched over at his massive shoulders who must have stood about six feet, four inches and weighed around 240 pounds. He towered over me and was strong and athletic in his approach to a trout stream. His books kicked off the use of big nymphs fished deep in heavy western currents.
We finally got around to sharing our experiences with George Gehrke. I don’t recall Charlie’s stories, but I had a few, too. We kept each other in stitches. George’s life unspooled like a collection of humorous vignettes for those who knew him.
We were at the end of the exchange when Charlie said, “Ya know one thang about George that ah can’t stand, though? He always calls me Chuck!”
I started to laugh — again — uncontrollably. “What is it?” Brooks tried to ask through my laughter. I finally half-giggled, “He always calls me Charlie!”
You don’t call a Charlie a Chuck or vice versa. It grates our sensibilities.
“You don’t suppose he’s got us confused, do you?” Charlie shot back. We both laughed harder.
George had pet nicknames for his friends. Brooks and I were in that circle.
So was Jim Repine, or Mr. Alaska as he was known a few decades ago. He pioneered today’s Alaskan fly fishing lodge that offers fly fishing guide service, rustic lodging and good food to Alaskan fly fishers.
Jim later introduced that same business model in South America — fly fishing for big trout in Chile and Argentina. When Alaska shut down he’d hit the U.S. fall-winter trade show and club circuit before heading to Chile for their summer — our winter.
On his way to Alaska in June he’d stop in the Bitterroot Valley where his friends George Gehrke and I lived. When Jim and I fished together the stories inevitably turned to George. Again, most of the Gehrke stories were hilarious. I remember one that wasn’t.
Jim was stuck at LAX due to a canceled flight, knew he’d miss a show date in Portland, and decided to pass the time by calling his friends. He called George — and when George learned that Jim was stranded and just killing time, he yelled, “Wait right there! I’m coming!”
Click.
In record time George had his private plane — a twin engine Beechcraft that he had modified — on the ground at LAX. Jim was surprised to see an intense George Gehrke walking at a near trot toward him and looking especially wide-eyed through the thick myopic glasses that bulged between his receding hairline and chin, saying, “Where’s your baggage? Let’s go!”
The takeoff, steep climb to altitude and leveling off at cruising speeds pushing past 240 mph (stock Beech’s do about 204) left Jim white-knuckled while George calmly explained how he achieved his plane’s over-the-top performance.
Jim made his club date on time. George flew back to Hamilton.
George didn’t see this as going out of his way at all. A friend needed help and he was able to give it. Simple as that.
Fly fishermen know George Gehrke as the name behind Gehrke’s Gink, the first easy to apply synthetic gel fly dressing. When fly fishers say they’re going to gink their fly with any of today’s dressings, linking the product to its use traces back to George.
In addition to Gink, George designed and produced the groundbreaking first CNC machined Marryat fly reel.
He sent a pre-production test reel to tackle rep Les Eichorn who was headed for the Bahamas and hard-running bonefish. Les’s first bone hit speeds that spun the spool off the frame and into the ocean, trailed by an unfurling corkscrew of line as the fish kept running. The wrecked tackle scene could have come out of a cartoon.
Les pondered: “How do I tell George?” When he finally called, George immediately recognized the voice and blurted, “I know! I’m working on it!”
He was an engineer, an inventor, an iconoclast, a genius, a delightful madman, a craftsman, and for those of us who knew him well, a delightfully amusing and deeply loyal friend.
George left Hamilton around 1990 and moved to Asotin, Washington where he lived until his passing. He visited me one last time shortly before his death, but that’s another Gehrke story.
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