Ernest George Schwiebert, Ph.D. (1931–2005) was born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 on June 5, 1931. An architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 by profession, Ernest "Ernie" Schwiebert was a renowned angler

Fly fishing

Fly fishing is an angling method in which an artificial 'fly' is used to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. Casting a nearly weightless fly or 'lure' requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting...

 and angling author. Schwiebert spent his childhood in the Midwest, attended high school at New Trier, north of Chicago, earned his bachelor's degree in architecture from Ohio State University

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...

, and earned two doctorates at Princeton

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in architecture and the history and philosophy of architecture.

He married Sara Mills in 1957 and had one son (Erik) and two grandchildren (Elisabeth and Turner). Having served in the Air Force

United States Air Force

The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

, he specialized in planning airports and military bases. Traveling on business, he also visited some of the world's best fishing streams, feeding a passion that had begun during boyhood vacations on the Pere Marquette River

Pere Marquette River

The Pere Marquette River is a river in the State of Michigan. The main stream of this river is about long, running from Lake County, Michigan just west of Reed City into the Pere Marquette Lake, and from there into Lake Michigan....

 in Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. In 1977 he left the engineering firm of Tippets, Abbott, McCarthy & Stratton, New York. He made scholarly contributions throughout his life as a writer, architect, and student of the art and science of fly fishing

Fly fishing

Fly fishing is an angling method in which an artificial 'fly' is used to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. Casting a nearly weightless fly or 'lure' requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting...

 for trout

Trout

Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...

 and salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...

. He wrote more than 15 books about fly fishing and architecture.

Ernie Schwiebert was a pioneer in the fishery conservation movement and was involved in the founding of Trout Unlimited

Trout Unlimited

Trout Unlimited is an international non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of freshwater streams, rivers, and associated upland habitats for trout, salmon, other aquatic species, and people. Often contracted as "TU," the organization began in 1959 in Michigan...

, Theodore Gordon Flyfishers and the Federation of Fly Fishers

Federation of Fly Fishers

The Federation of Fly Fishers is an international 501 non-profit organization headquartered in Livingston, Montana dedicated to the betterment of the sport of fly fishing through Conservation, Restoration and Education...

. He has served as a Director of both Theodore Gordon Flyfishers and the Atlantic Salmon Federation

Atlantic Salmon Federation

The Atlantic Salmon Federation is an international conservation organization established in 1948.The Federation is dedicated to the conservation, protection and restoration of wild Atlantic salmon and the ecosystems on which their well being and survival depend.ASF’s headquarters are in St...

, and on the scientific advisory boards of TU, FFF and The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy is a US charitable environmental organization that works to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive....

. In recognition of his contributions, a Trout Unlimited Chapter in New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 is named for him.

He was best known for his extensive writings about fly-fishing. His books include Matching the Hatch (1955), Nymphs (1973), Salmon of the World (1970), and the two-volume Trout (1978). He wrote numerous magazine articles and short stories which were published in such collections as Remembrances of Rivers Past (1972), Death of a Riverkeeper (1980), and A River for Christmas (1988). An often referenced and quoted writer, Schwiebert has over twelve references in Arnold Gingrich’s

Arnold Gingrich

Arnold Gingrich was the editor of, and, along with publisher David A. Smart, co-founder of Esquire magazine. He created the magazine in 1933 and remained its editor until 1961...

 book The Fishing in Print and fourteen references in Paul Schullery’s American Fly Fishing, A History. Gingrich considered Schwiebert’s position impregnable as the leading angling author of our time and that he had an impressive ability to absorb entomological detail and convert it into pleasing prose for his readers.

His numerous awards and honors included the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects

American Institute of Architects

The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...

, The Arnold Gingrich Literary Prize (1978 Federation of Flyfishers), the Aldo Starker Leopold Memorial Award (1994 International Wild Trout Symposium), and life memberships with the Theodore Gordon Flyfishers, Federation of Flyfishers, and the Anglers Club of New York. He was a member of the Henryville Flyfishers, the Spring Ridge Club, and many other anglers clubs.

The following excerpt from the closing speech at 2005 opening ceremonies at the American Museum of Fly Fishing

American Museum of Fly Fishing

The American Museum of Fly Fishing is a museum in Manchester, Vermont, USA, that preserves and exhibits artifacts related to American angling.-Exhibits and collections:...

 typifies the eloquence of Ernie Schwiebert and his writings.

I will conclude with a story.

My obsession with fishing began in childhood, watching bluegills and pumpkinseeds and perch under a rickety dock, below a simple cedar-shingled cottage in southern Michigan. My obsession with trout began there too, when my mother drove north into town for groceries, and took me along with the promise of chocolate ice cream. We crossed a stream that was utterly unlike those near Chicago, fetid and foul-smelling, or choked with the silts of farm-country tillage. It flowed swift and crystalline over the bottom of ochre cobblestones and pebbles and like Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River,” it mysteriously disappeared into thickets of cedar sweepers downstream.

And a man was fishing there.

The current was smooth, but it tumbled swiftly around his legs. It was a different kind of fishing, utterly unlike watching a red-and-white bobber on a tepid childhood pond, with its lilypad and cattail margins, and its callings of redwinged blackbirds. His amber line worked back and forth in the sunlight, and he dropped his fly on the water briefly, only to tease it free of the current, and strip the moisture from its barbules with more casting. It seemed more like the grace of ballet than fishing.

And then the man hooked a fish.

My mother called to the angler, and gave me permission to run and see his prize. I remember getting my feet muddy and wet, with a Biblical plague of cockleburrs at my ankles, but it did not matter. The fish was still in the man’s landing met, and he raised it dripping and shining in his hand. It was a brook trout of six inches, its dorsal surfaces drak with blue and olive vermiculations, and its flanks clouded with dusky parr markings. Its belly and lower fins were a bright tangerine, with edgings of alabaster and ebony, and it glowed like a jeweler’s tray of opals and moonstones and rubies. I had witnessed something beautiful, and I wanted to be part of it.

People often ask why I fish, and after seventy-odd years, I am beginning to understand.

I fish because of Beauty.

Everything about our sport (and our cause in terms of TU) is beautiful. Its more than five centuries of manuscript and books and folios are beautiful. Its artifacts of rods and beautifully machined reels are beautiful. Its old wading staffs and split-willow creels, and the delicate artifice of its flies, are beautiful. Dressing such confections of fur, feathers and steel is beautiful, and our worktables are littered with gorgeous scraps of tragopan and golden pheasant and blue chattered and Coq de Leon. The best of sporting art is beautiful. The riverscapes that sustain the fish are beautiful. Our methods of seeking them are beautiful, and we find ourselves enthralled with the quicksilver poetry of the fish.

And in our contentious time of partisan hubris, selfishness, and outright mendacity, Beauty itself may prove the most endangered thing of all.

Ernest Schwiebert - 2005

Ernest George Schwiebert, Ph.D., 74, died December 10, 2005 at his home in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

.

Works

Title	Comments
	Matching The Hatch was the first American book to cover fly imitiation from a transcontinental perspective and is widely read and reprinted. According to Paul Schullery, Matching The Hatch set the standard for fly entomology and tying studies for the late 20th Century.
	A fascinating account and one of the seminal books on American Fly Fishing clubs.