American anglers played an important role in the development of fly fishing. In the late 19th century well known anglers like Theodore Gordon, began using fly tackle in the Catskill Mountains of New York to fish the region’s many brook trout-rich streams. Many of these early fly fishermen from the USA also developed new fly patterns and wrote extensively about the sport, increasing its popularity all over the continent.
Fly fishing in the USA was very much at its peak in the early 1920s in the eastern states of Maine and Vermont and in the Midwest, such as in the spring creeks of Wisconsin. Ernest Hemingway did much to popularise fly fishing (and deep sea fishing) through novels such as The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and The Sea. However, it was only the emergence in the 1950s of inexpensive fiberglass rods, synthetic fly lines, and monofilament leaders, that revived the popularity of fly fishing, especially in the United States.
In recent years, interest in the sport has surged with the new generation. Films such as Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It, starring Brad Pitt, TV fishing programmes, and the emergence of a competitive fly casting circuit have also added to the visibility of the sport of fly fishing.
