Bob Popovics, Legendary Northeastern Saltwater Fly Tier, Dead at 75

Bob Popovics, one of saltwater fly fishing’s most storied practitioners as well as an iconic fly tier from New Jersey who elevated striped bass flies to an art form, succumbed in the early morning hours of November 1, to injuries sustained when he was struck by a vehicle in late September.

Popovics’ daughter Alexis posted the tragic news on the Facebook page for Shady Rest Restaurant, the restaurant that Popovics owned and operated for many years in Bayville, N.J.

“So very sad to announce that Bob passed this morning, Nov 1, around 3am. I will write a better post later, but I wanted to thank all who took the time to go visit him yesterday, and to all who were planning to but didn't make it. With prayers and thoughts from around the world, he was able to transition peacefully and quickly to his next journey. 

“Rest easy, Marine. Your watch has ended. – Alexis”

As readers of Fly Fisherman will recall, the 75-year-old Popovics was critically injured on the evening of September 23 in an alleged hit-and-run accident. There seemed to be some hope earlier in October that perhaps Popovics could rally and recover following a surgical procedure, but those hopes were dashed earlier in the week when Alexis posted on Facebook that her father had been transferred into hospice care at Jersey Shore University Medical Center. 

News of Popovics’ passing spread quickly on the morning of November 1, and despite the wee hours that brought the breaking news, hundreds of social media comments were generated in only a few hours’ time, speaking volumes of Popovics stature within the saltwater fly-rodding community.

"Anyone who has ever had contact with Bob Popovics, regardless of how brief or extensive, cannot help but be affected by that contact," said longtime friend and fly angling great Ed Jaworowski. "As for me, I will cherish and preserve the 50 years I spent fishing, traveling, or simply chatting and joking with him, for the rest of my life. I can’t convey the depth and intensity our friendship, nor the impact it has had on my life. I truly loved him.

"However, in some feeble way I can perhaps suggest the impact he had on the sport of fly fishing, at least as I see it. He was novel, original, different, whatever you choose to call it. He never ceased chasing an idea. He challenged us all simply to think differently: How can I do this better, differently, more effectively? Bob was far more than a fly tier, and he wasn’t simply a 'salt water fly fisherman.' He targeted bass, shad and pike with the same intensity he possessed when casting to striped bass in the surf and false albacore from a jetty. And he revealed that same drive and passion when shooting his outstanding videos of his experiences on the water for nearly 40 years; even in running his restaurant!

To call Popovics a legend would be an understatement, especially if your world of fly fishing involves the taste of salt in the air, a freshening breeze rolling inland off the surf, and the sight of baitfish panicking and fleeing by the millions as wave after wave of hungry striped bass slash into the melee and seagulls wheel about and cry noisily overhead as they search for leftovers.

That was the sandy turf that Popovics prowled better than just about anyone did for decades, a talent generated by many hours of roaming a remote stretch of Jersey shoreline not too many miles south of New York City’s big sprawl. As Popovics waded into the shoreline surf all these years, he continued honing skills for catching big striped bass that tantalize fly anglers during the southward fall run, as well as spring and summer migration back to the north.

Popovics was no stranger to readers of Fly Fisherman magazine, and he regularly shared the knowledge he was gathering in coastal waters near his home. Those skills, and Popovics’ extraordinary abilities at the vise, were chronicled in Fly Fisherman's Oct-Nov-Dec 2018 issue, an issued that celebrated the magazine's 50th anniversary. In that story, titled "The 50 Most Influential Fly Fishers," Popovics checked in at No. 33 on the list. 

"There’s no other way to describe Bob Popovics other than to say he’s the most inspirational and innovative saltwater fly tier of all time," longtime Fly Fisherman editor Ross Purnell wrote in that article. "More than 20 years ago he pioneered the use of epoxy and silicone in tying baitfish imitations, and with Ed Jaworowski published the book Pop Fleyes (2001). He later moved on to light-cured acrylics and became a specialist in using bucktail to effectively tie giant, lifelike baitfish imitations that don’t carry water and are easy to cast. He described his most recent revelations on materials and design techniques with author Jay Nichols in Fleye Design (2016)."

Such abilities at the vise enabled Popovics to tie some of the best saltwater striped bass patterns ever made, including the Surf Candy, the Siliclone, Bob's Banger, Cotton Candy, and many more. 

Some of those Popovics patterns have been profiled in past issues of Fly Fisherman and on the magazine’s website, patterns like the BULKhead Deceiver, his Hollow Fleyes series, and the Jiggy Fly.

In addition to the Top 50 honor noted above, Popovics was also featured in a 2020 destination feature story when Purnell fished with Popovics on his home turf waters at Island Beach State Park. Using some of his extraordinary fly patterns, Popovics and Purnell targeted the famous fall run on the Jersey Shore.

As noted here at flyfisherman.com before, Popovics certainly carved his name into the sport’s lore in many other ways down through the years, including being the founder of the Atlantic Salmon Saltwater Fly Rodders as well as having an advisory role with Temple Fork Outfitters fly rods, along with an affiliation with Tibor fly reels and the Renzetti Legacy Tying Team.

Many of the fly-tying greats counted Popovics as their biggest inspiration.

“It is hard for me to capture in words what Bob meant to me as a fly-fishing icon, mentor, inspiration, and friend. He was bigger than life,” said Blane Chocklett, creator of the Game Changer series of flies. “Bob is the greatest fly-tying innovator and ambassador of all time, he always had time for everyone, and shared his knowledge with anyone who asked. He cared deeply about people, the world of fly fishing, and fly-tying history. He always wanted the history of the sport to be remembered and those that came before and their work not forgotten. Thank you Bob for having such broad shoulders for the rest of us to stand on. You left us with an incredible body of work to follow and push forward. You left the sport in a better place and I am so grateful for your friendship.”

Added Jaworowski: "Whether we refer to fly fishing as a pastime, avocation, or sport, he added to it a new dimension. As a result of his countless years of inquiry about the nature of materials we use to create our flies, or the endless ways he envisioned to use them, he continually pushed the sport forward. He thought about tackle and techniques in the same way. His mind never rested. He never ceased asking what if? He was creative to a degree few have ever achieved, or ever will. As a result of his enthusiasm and drive, thousands have benefited and can enjoy their beloved pastime so much more than they ever could otherwise."

The New Jersey fly angler was also an inductee into the North American Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame (1998) as well as the Catskill Fly Fishing Museum Hall of Fame (CFFCM, 2014). While he isn’t yet enshrined in the International Game Fish Association’s (IGFA) Hall of Fame, given the fact that many of his proteges are there, it would not be a surprise to someday see Popovics inducted posthumously into the IGFA HOF.

According to the CFFCM website, Popovics' Hall of Fame biography there credits his living on the Jersey Shore as a part of his saltwater fly pattern genius.

"Living as he does in Seaside Park, New Jersey, a small town on a slim barrier island with Barnegat Bay on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other, it’s no surprise that Bob Popovics is a die-hard saltwater fly-fisher," notes the CFFCM website. "He specializes in casting from the surf for striped bass, bluefish, and false albacore as they prowl the ocean’s edge, ever in search of prey.

"His knowledge of these fish and their habits has made him a master angler. His capacity to imagine new ways of making flies has made him one of most influential saltwater fly tiers. Popovics’s book, Pop Fleyes: Bob Popovics’s Approach to Saltwater Fly Design, co-authored by Ed Jaworowski, revolutionized saltwater fly-fishing with a suite of patterns that employed new techniques and materials to produce lifelike imitations of the forage fish of the Atlantic coast."

He was a close friend of angling great Lefty Kreh who often touted Popovics’s flies in his travels and called Popovics “the greatest saltwater fly tier of all time.”

An ever-popular seminar presenter and fly tier who regularly appeared at national and regional fly fishing and fly tying shows, Popovics also proved to be a popular interview for a variety of podcasts in this modern era, including Andy Mill's well-known Millhouse Podcast. Thankfully, a wide-ranging podcast interview between Mill and Popovics will help to keep Popovics’ memory and details of his fly angling journey alive for years to come.

So will Popovics’ books, articles, and fly patterns. As noted by the CFFCM website, the striped bass aficionado, the saltwater-fly-pattern genius, and the New Jersey restaurateur was indeed one of a kind, and one eager to share his passionate love of the sport as well as his innovative fly-making skills with others.

"Popovics has been called one of the great ambassadors of fly-fishing for his eagerness to share his knowledge with fellow anglers," notes the website. "This spirit was embodied in the open houses at his home on the Jersey shore, which played a role in the coming explosion of public interest in saltwater fly-fishing. 

"Between 1986 and 1992, on Tuesday nights from January to May, Popovics opened his home to all who shared his passion for fly-fishing the surf to talk strategies and streamers in an atmosphere of camaraderie. Most were local anglers, but visitors from Maine to Maryland, Michigan to Pennsylvania travelled to attend. Among them were some of the biggest names in fly-fishing."

Perhaps so. But as it turned out, those big names in fly fishing were actually coming to see the latest from one of the sport’s rising stars, the quiet and humble man from New Jersey who always wanted to help others find the joy that he knew, and that was how to feel the big pull of a sizable Atlantic striper at the end of a fly line. 

For a man of big stature who humbly served his country in the U.S. Marine Corps and eagerly shared his vast knowledge with others, Popovics was a larger-than-life fly angler who had an easy-going smile, a humble manner, and an infectious enthusiasm, as he fished while the gulls cried and the stripers crashed bait along the coastline’s surly edge. 

Rest in peace Bob Popovics, you won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

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