DALLAS—September 23, 2009. In some surprising post-tradeshow industry news, Temple Fork Outfitters president Rick Pope announced today that novelist Ernest Hemingway recently rose from the dead and asked to join the advisory staff of Temple Fork Outfitters.
“I was shocked,” Pope said. “I mean, the guy died almost 50 years ago, so I was pretty surprised he had a cell phone to begin with. But then he texts me that he wants his own signature series—it’s like a dream come true.”
Hemingway, who was awarded the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea, said his comeback is a result of seeing contemporaries like Lefty Kreh and Bob Clouser score sweet free-agent deals with TFO. “I see these young guns like Kreh getting paid to put their names on a fly rod, and I figured, ‘Hey, I’m Ernest effin’ Heminway—slap my name on one of those bastards.’ Then back in July, when Loomis got his deal, I was like, ‘Shit, he’s just a kid. Sign me up, dammit.’”
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.