Emily Whitlock
Emily has been an avid outdoors woman most of her life. Born in Arkansas and raised in Colorado until she was 12, when her family returned to the south. Born in Arkansas and raised in Colorado until she was 12, when her family returned to the South where she had learned to fish when she was seven years old during trips to her grandparents’ Arkansas farm. Along with her two brothers she found a love for the nature and the outdoors early in her life.
Emily has degrees in botany and biology and is a conservationist in the true sense, willing to work for preservation of the natural world. Honored as Woman of the Year by the Federation of Fly Fishers Southern Council, she has also received conservation awards from the Sierra Club and Wildlife Federation.
An accomplished fly-fishing instructor, she and Dave, as a team, taught fly fishing at their schools for nearly 30 years and she continues to teach at her Oklahoma home and around the country. She’s especially passionate about getting more women into fly fishing because she feels it’s such a perfect sport for women. She also teaches casting at events throughout the year. As a lecturer her programs include fly fishing travels to New Zealand and other great fly-fishing destinations; getting started right in fly fishing; natural and imitation fish foods; and stream-side wildflowers.
As a photographer, her work has appeared in several national publications and Dave’s books and on the cover of Fly Fisherman Magazine. She co-authored with Dave the “Artful Profiles of Trout, Char and Salmon and the Flies that Catch them” and several articles. Emily edited all of Dave’s work, created his art prints and was truly his partner in all of his writing, art and video projects.
Emily feels that fly fishing is not just a sport but a way of spending time in the outdoors that helps create an understanding of the incredible relationships we have with nature and the interconnectedness of us all. She hopes you will join her on this continuing journey in this wonderful life of fly fishing.
Dave Whitlock 1937 – 2022
So much can and has been said about Dave Whitlock because he truly was a renaissance man in fly fishing. He was a writer, artist, photographer, teacher, fly designer, illustrator, speaker, inventor, rod and leader designer. He wrote 6 books and co-authored or contributed to many more, as well illustrating over 20 books. Dave also wrote almost 200 articles for fly fishing magazines over his years as a professional fly fisher.
He re-designed streams to make them trout worthy and was the first fly tier to get paid royalties for his fly patterns, designing such notables as ‘Dave’s Hopper’, ‘Red Fox Squirrel Nymph’ series and ‘NearNuff Sculpin and Crawfish’. He helped bring fly fishing to cool and warm water and to lots of folks who didn’t think they could or should fly fish and was one of the first to design flies for bass and other non-trout species.
He was integral in starting some of the first fly fishing clubs and spread the word about the Federation of Fly Fishing when it was just beginning. Dave perfected the Whitlock/Vibert box … a trout egg nursery box that was used to stock the White and Norfork River systems in Ark with what would become world record brown trout. Along the way he was the recipient of some of the top honors in fly fishing.
Dave’s experience and creative outlook on the whole spectrum of fly fishing earned him the reputation of being one of the top professionals in the sport.
Dave and Emily joined forces in 1991. They taught fly fishing for 30 years, created books, videos, articles and seminars together and traveled the fly-fishing world together. A unique fly-fishing team, they were devoted to the world of fly fishing and conservation.
More information:
Dave’s art and writing appeared regularly in many fly-fishing and sport publications such as Fly Fisherman Magazine, Fly Fishing and Tying Journal, Trout Magazine and others. He wrote six books: Dave Whitlock’s Guide to Aquatic Trout Foods; the L.L. Bean Fly Fishing Handbook; the L.L. Bean Bass Fly Fishing Handbook; Imitating and Fishing Natural Fish Foods for Lefty’s Little Library; Trout – A Compact Guide for Fly Fishers; and Artful Profiles of Trout, Char and Salmon and the Classic Flies that Catch Them which he co-authored with Emily.
He also co-authored or contributed to many other books, including The Flytyer’s Almanac; Second Fly-Tyer’s Almanac; Art Flick’s Master Fly-Tying Guide; McClane’s Fishing Encyclopedia; Masters on the Nymph; and many others. He illustrated over 20 books including Steve Raymond’s Year of the Angler and Year of the Trout and President Carter’s Outdoor Journal. Dave demonstrated his fly-fishing and teaching skills in several videos and through many guest appearances and on televised fly-fishing programs.
Dave’s experience and creative outlook on the whole spectrum of fly fishing earned him the reputation of being one of the top professional fly fishers in the sport. He was the recipient of many awards for his fly-fishing and fly-tying contributions, including induction into the National Fresh Water Hall of Fame; the Trout Hall of Fame; the American Museum of Fly Fishing; and the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum Hall of Fame. He was honored with Max Ander’s Wild Trout Award for his work on propagation of wild trout; the Federation of Fly Fishers’ Conservation Man of the Year Award; and the Buz Buzeck Flytyer’s Award which is the highest honor in the fly-tying world and recognized his innovativeness in new fly-tying patterns and his national fly-tying activities. The FFF James E. Henshall Award was given for his work in warm-water fishing and conservation, and he received FFF’s Ambassador Award for national and international promotion of fly fishing and conservation. Dave is in the Arkansas Game & Fish Hall of Fame and was given the Lifetime Contribution Award from the National American Fly Tackle Trade Association.
One of Dave’s most notable contributions to wild trout management and preservation was the Whitlock-Vibert Box System — a unique and efficient in-stream salmonoid egg incubator and nursery devise. He worked for seven years researching and developing this system and then wrote and illustrated an instructional text and later a video called the FFF Whitlock-Vibert Box Handbook. Today, under the sponsorship of the Federation of Fly Fishers, this Whitlock-Vibert Box program is used throughout the world for introduction or enhancement of wild trout, char and salmon stocks. The WV Box was used to stock what became the world record brown trout of the White River system of Arkansas.
All of Dave’s work, especially his art, lovingly reflects the realism of nature and related fly-fishing subjects through the eyes of a true sportsman.
