Legendary Florida Keys angler and business owner, George Hommell, died on Saturday at the age of 88. Hommell was a founding member of the Islamorada Fishing Guides Association, which took root in the mid-50s and helped promote conservation measures in the region. A military veteran of World War II and Korea, Hommell was a self-taught flyfisher. Over the years his client list grew to include the likes of Paul Newman, Jack Nicklaus, Dan Rather, and George H. W. Bush.
With Billy Pate, he opened the original World Wide Sportsman in Islamorada in June 1967.
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.