March 27, 2025
By Fly Fisherman Staff
Jay Nichols has been an editor, publisher, photographer, videographer, and author for more than 25 years and has produced some of the most iconic and influential fly-fishing books, including Casting with Lefty Kreh (2008). In this episode, we sit down with Jay to discuss his directorial debut in the documentary Lefty: The Greatest of All Time premiering March 27 at the Weinberg Center. The conversation starts with his upbringing, education, his journey in fly fishing, and swings into his involvement in publishing much of the great fly-fishing literature of this century. Ross and Jay also explore Jay's decades-long relationship with Lefty, go behind the scenes in the making of the film, and learn about Lefty's “super power.” Hint: It wasn't his casting.
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Truncated transcript:
00:00:03.460 --> 00:00:45.400: Hi, I'm Ross Purnell, editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman magazine. Welcome to the Loop to Loop podcast, where we make deeper connections with the people behind the magazine. We are sponsored today by G. Loomis, American-made fly rods manufactured in Woodland, Washington. We are also sponsored by our good friends at Patagonia. They encourage you to reuse, repair, and recycle before considering a new purchase. If you enjoy this podcast, please support our sponsors.
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00:00:45.400 --> 00:01:13.120: And you can support us by subscribing to the magazine at flyfisherman.com. You can also 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.
00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:51.960: Our guest today is my longtime friend, Jay Nichols, who is the fly fishing editor at Stackpole Books and the publisher at Headwater Books. Jay has been influential over the last two decades, at least, in producing some of the most influential fly-fishing literature of this century. He's also my most frequent fishing partner. When we get out in the rafts, Jay's the guy I always call on, not just to share the water, but I rely on him for all of my fishing information, because he always has the finger on the pulse of things. Thanks for coming in today, Jay.
00:01:51.960 --> 00:02:06.720: Yeah, you bet. And that's just around the corner here. Smallmouth is-- with all this warm weather that we've been having, I feel like it can happen anytime now. So close. Cabin fever is really taking over.
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00:02:06.720 --> 00:02:24.520: For those listening on the podcast, we're recording this in March and April. We are getting the rafts blown up and getting ready to hit the water for smallmouth bass. So it's an exciting time for fly tying and getting everything ready to go. For sure.
00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:55.000: We were just out the other day, and it is definitely still a little early. But the 60-degree weather has you chomping at the bit. You've been out already? Oh, yeah, a few times. Hardcore. Yeah, but we have those early black stones are hatching, and there were fish up and rising. But I think in terms of at least smallmouth bass, the water temperatures need to creep up a little bit more before we see any movement, at least from the big river.
00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:09.000: Yeah, but the time change happened now. It seems like days are getting longer. We're on the verge. I'm excited.
00:03:02.320 --> 00:03:24.360: So the main purpose of our conversation today is talk about the incredible film that you have made and has not yet released, Lefty: The Greatest of All Time. Congratulations, by the way. That is an incredible tribute to one of the greatest fly fishers of all time.
00:03:24.360 --> 00:04:00.320: Thanks, Ross. I really appreciate that, especially coming from you. You knew him well. And actually, when working on it, all the people that knew him so well were sort of like my audience in a way, because I wanted to make sure to portray him in the most--the accurate light as possible. Everybody has a Lefty story. He has touched so many people so deeply. So it was a big project...
