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Icons: Simon Gawesworth

Icons, a web series from Swing the Fly, looks at the most influential figures in spey casting and swinging flies from North America and beyond in the 21st century. In this installment, we visit with Simon Gawesworth, one of the greatest Spey casting instructors and authors to grace our sport. Simon talks in this article about his latest book, his favorite rivers in both the U.K. and the U.S., his memories of times fishing on his own, and the Miracle of Istanbul.

The Green Machine and the Rio Grande

Last January, Michael and I finally stood on the banks of the Rio Grande in Tierra del Fuego. Like always, we booked on a relatively short notice, but we made it. We even man-aged to fill our fly boxes with all kinds of differnt flies, from Wooly Buggers to tube flies, rubber leg nymphs and Sunray shadows. That took us a few long nights but we were safe for flies. That’s what we thought. There was one fly that we didn’t have in our box. To be honest, we didn’t even think about it. A fly which usually is fished for Atlantic salmon in Canada and has her roots on the Miramichi.