G. E. M. Skues
| G. E. M. Skues | |
|---|---|
Photograph by Howard Coster, 1927
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| Born |
George Edward MacKenzie Skues 13 August 1858 St. Johns, Newfoundland |
| Died | 9 August 1949 (aged 90) |
| Monuments | Commemorative bench on Abbots Barton Fishery, River Itchen |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Lawyer, author |
| Known for | Nymph fishing |
| Notable work | Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream |
George Edward MacKenzie Skues, usually known as G. E. M. Skues (1858–1949), was a British lawyer, author and fly fisherman most noted for the invention of modern-day nymph fishing and the controversy it caused with the Chalk stream dry fly doctrine developed by Frederic M. Halford. His second book, The Way of a Trout with the Fly (1921) is considered a seminal work on nymph fishing. According to Dr Andrew Herd, the British fly fishing historian, Skues:
was, without any doubt, one of the greatest trout fishermen that ever lived. His achievement was the invention of fly fishing with the nymph, a discovery that put a full stop to half a century of stagnation in wet fly fishing for trout, and formed the bedrock for modern sunk fly fishing. Skues' achievement was not without controversy, and provoked what was perhaps the most bitter dispute in fly fishing history.
Paul Schullery, the American fly fishing historian, characterises Skues in Skues on Trout as:
...Skues has been described not only as the father of nymph fishing, but as the greatest fly fisher who ever lived. He was also a modest, humorous and warmly accessible writer whose writings never lost sympathy for this his fellow anglers. His self-deprecating and deceptively simple-sounding writings on trout and fly fishing remain among the wisest and most revealing in the sport's enormous literature.
John Goddard in The Essential G. E. M. Skues wrote:
...I still look on Skues with considerable awe as, with out doubt, the greatest thinking fly fisher ever to put pen to paper. In this respect, he was way ahead of Halford as an observant and creative angler
Skues was born on 13 August 1858 in St. Johns, Newfoundland, and was the eldest child of William MacKenzie Skues, at the time surgeon to the Newfoundland Companies. His mother's maiden name was Margaret Ayre. At the age of 3, his parents returned to Britain en route to work in India. He was left with and raised by his paternal grandparents in Aberdeen, Scotland, Langford and Wrington in Somerset. In 1872 he won a scholarship to Winchester, and left the school in 1877. It was at Winchester that Skues was introduced to fly fishing when, in 1874, he bought some hooks in Hammond's to catch minnows. Hammond's, an angling shop in Winchester, introduced Skues to fly fishing and his first attempt was made using an eleven-foot rod, a silk and horsehair line, and a Wickham's Fancy.
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Wikipedia