September 09, 2025
By Fly Fisherman Staff
Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. We earn from qualifying purchases.
Bob Rich is the author of five books, his latest Looking Through Water has been adapted into a major motion picture starring Michael Douglas and will be in theaters nationwide September 12, 2025.
Like its predecessor A River Runs Through It, Looking Through Water is about family and how fly fishing can tear them apart or bring them closer together. Bob reveals the behind-the-scenes involved with making a movie, and the major difficulties involved with creating realism in a saltwater environment. You will love this conversation with a down-to-earth angler who has fished around the world, caught everything from panfish to 1,000-pound marlin, called President George H. W. Bush his friend, and is fondly known as “Bubba” by his many, many fishing friends. He is chairman and majority owner of Rich Products, a major donor and supporter of Bonefish & Tarpon Trust—we also take a deep dive into BTT, why it is important, and how they are making giant strides forward using science as a tool. Bob hails from Buffalo, New York and we also jump into the topic of Buffalo wings. If you dip your wings in ranch, you are doing it wrong, and Bob will set you straight.
Follow us on social media: Our Instagram handle is @flyfishermanmagazine. On Facebook, we are simply @flyfisherman. And you can watch this podcast in its video form on our YouTube channel. Just search for the terms Fly Fisherman magazine.
Advertisement
Listen to all episodes here!
Truncated transcript:
00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:50.700: Hi, I'm Ross Purnell, editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman Magazine. Welcome to Loop to Loop, where we make deeper connections with the people behind the magazine. We're sponsored today by Patagonia. Check out their new line of Swiftcurrent Waders. They make two models, the Traverse and the Expedition. They're both excellent. They've been re-patterned and re-seed, not just to make them tougher, but to make them easier to repair. And they work well with the new pair, new line of Stealth Switch Packs so you can hook those packs on your wader, suspenders, or your belt. It's a great system that works together.
Advertisement
00:00:50.700 --> 00:01:18.360: We're also sponsored by G. Loomis, American-made rods made in Woodland, Washington. I've been using G Loomis rods for about 20 years. I first got started on them for my friend Steve Rajeff who is the best tournament caster of all time today. I am still using my NRX Plus and IMX Pro rods for different fishing situations, different species. Absolutely love them.
00:01:18.360 --> 00:02:29.740 : If you enjoy this podcast, you can support our sponsors. And you can support us by subscribing to Fly Fisherman magazine. Please support our sponsors, and you can support us by subscribing to the magazine. It's quick and easy. Go to flyfisherman.com. There's a little subscribe button in the top right-hand corner, and you can subscribe to the leading magazine of fly fishing. You can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @flyfishermanmagazine, on Facebook @flyfisherman. And hopefully you are watching this podcast in its YouTube format on our YouTube channel it's @flyfisherman magazine. Please subscribe and follow us there.
00:01:51.330 --> 00:02:29.700: Our guest today, we are very fortunate to have with us Bob Rich, who is CEO of Rich Products and author of many interesting books that we're gonna cover today. He's fished all around the world. He's caught many of my dream species that I could only hope to fish for, and he's also the author of the book Looking Through Water, which is being released into a major motion picture just next week. So we're excited to have you in the studio today. Bob, thank you for coming.
00:02:29.700 --> 00:02:50.825: Ross, it's great being with you and talking to my friends in the fly-fishing world. I feel like I'm with the family today in a family meeting. I feel like you have many friends, friends in the fly-fishing business. Every, you fished all over the place and I think we know a lot of the, a lot of the same people. Indeed. It's a small group, right?
00:02:50.825 --> 00:03:13.390: Indeed, indeed it is. And I was thinking about that when we were at ICAST and fishing with people like Flip Pallot right next door to us in the fishing pond and watching him instruct some of the people and thinking of the memories that he's created in the, the industry and what a loss that is.
00:03:13.390 --> 00:03:29.830: Yeah. And we just found out last night that he had passed away and he was a big influence to me and probably everybody in the fishing business, a lot of people, he, he cast a wide shadow. He will be missed. Indeed.
00:03:29.830 --> 00:03:45.640: Before we get talking too much about the movie and the book and stuff like that, I I, you know, one of the great joys of this podcast is to find out the backstory on people, mostly the fishing backstory. Like how did you get started fly fishing?
00:03:45.640 --> 00:04:12.070: Well, I grew up in Buffalo on the Great Lakes and like a lot of kids, I cherished the time that I got to fish with my dad. And he was not a fly fisherman. We were, he was more of a, a food fisherman and he, he never could understand how we could release a perfectly good fish when he was, instead of bringing it home for dinner…
