David Churbuck
02-25-2004, 06:11 PM
I’d like to welcome Jack Samson to Reel-Time in the second Ask the Author session of 2004.
I first met Jack in the early 90s at a fishing show held at the World Trade Center next to Anthony’s Pier 4 in Boston. He was demonstrating terminal tackle rigging ideas for big game fly fishing, and had something like a 15 weight rod with him, the biggest fly rod I had ever seen. For a half hour he explained to me his method of using crimps and loops rather than knots, and I went away thinking, “What a really nice guy.”
He won’t remember that chance encounter, but I did, and when we put together a dream team of authors to invite to participate in the Ask the Authors, Jack was at the top of my list. Why?
Let me get to his biography. Maybe that’ll explain the man’s credentials.
Jack (John G.) Samson is a native of the Ocean State, born in Providence, but at the age of eight shipped west to Santa Fe to recover from severe asthma. He still calls Santa Fe home. Jack flew 52 combat missions as an Army Air Corps navigator aboard a B-24 Liberator with the 14th Air Force in China. He graduated from the University of New Mexico on the GI bill and was a graduate of that school’s first journalism class.
Jack covered the Korean War as a correspondent for United Press and later joined the Associated Press in Albuquerque, N.M. as a staff writer. He was awarded a Nieman Fellowship for journalism at Harvard in 1960.
Jack joined the staff of Field & Stream as managing editor in 1970. Two years later he was named editor-in-chief, where he remained until 1985. During those 15 years he wrote 20 books – mostly on outdoor topics, but also three biographies of naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton, Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault – founder of the famed Flying Tigers of World War II, and fly fisherman and conservationist Lee Wulff.
Jack has served on the board of the Outdoors Writers Association of America and as a representative of the International Game Fish Association.
Jack has written 23 books – generally one a year. He lives with his artist wife, Victoria, in Santa Fee. He has three sons and four grandchildren.
Jack is a passionate saltwater fly fisherman. His most recent work is about fly fishing for permit, and is published by Countryman Press in Woodstock, Vermont. It is an honor to welcome him to Reel-Time. He’ll be answering questions from the Reel-Time audience for the next few weeks, before his next fishing trip calls him away to some place tropical.
I first met Jack in the early 90s at a fishing show held at the World Trade Center next to Anthony’s Pier 4 in Boston. He was demonstrating terminal tackle rigging ideas for big game fly fishing, and had something like a 15 weight rod with him, the biggest fly rod I had ever seen. For a half hour he explained to me his method of using crimps and loops rather than knots, and I went away thinking, “What a really nice guy.”
He won’t remember that chance encounter, but I did, and when we put together a dream team of authors to invite to participate in the Ask the Authors, Jack was at the top of my list. Why?
Let me get to his biography. Maybe that’ll explain the man’s credentials.
Jack (John G.) Samson is a native of the Ocean State, born in Providence, but at the age of eight shipped west to Santa Fe to recover from severe asthma. He still calls Santa Fe home. Jack flew 52 combat missions as an Army Air Corps navigator aboard a B-24 Liberator with the 14th Air Force in China. He graduated from the University of New Mexico on the GI bill and was a graduate of that school’s first journalism class.
Jack covered the Korean War as a correspondent for United Press and later joined the Associated Press in Albuquerque, N.M. as a staff writer. He was awarded a Nieman Fellowship for journalism at Harvard in 1960.
Jack joined the staff of Field & Stream as managing editor in 1970. Two years later he was named editor-in-chief, where he remained until 1985. During those 15 years he wrote 20 books – mostly on outdoor topics, but also three biographies of naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton, Maj. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault – founder of the famed Flying Tigers of World War II, and fly fisherman and conservationist Lee Wulff.
Jack has served on the board of the Outdoors Writers Association of America and as a representative of the International Game Fish Association.
Jack has written 23 books – generally one a year. He lives with his artist wife, Victoria, in Santa Fee. He has three sons and four grandchildren.
Jack is a passionate saltwater fly fisherman. His most recent work is about fly fishing for permit, and is published by Countryman Press in Woodstock, Vermont. It is an honor to welcome him to Reel-Time. He’ll be answering questions from the Reel-Time audience for the next few weeks, before his next fishing trip calls him away to some place tropical.