"That hat looks a lot different on Brad Pitt," Russell Hopper jokes as he opens the front door, a reference to the star in the movie A River Runs Through It." Pictures of speckled trout and fishermen casting midstream adorn the walls of his living room. An I'd-Rather-Be-Fishing cross-stitched pillow cushions the chair. In the middle of the room there is a table full of fishing flies, one in midtie stretched across a fly-tying vise. "All flies are handmade," Hopper explains. "You just 'match the hatch'-look at what's on the river you're fishing and tie a fly that matches." A large gray cat lounges across the top of the couch and yawns like she's heard it all before as Hopper talks excitedly about his fly-fishing passion.

  "It's a spiritual thing, just to be in the moment, to be in the stream. You don't worry about work, about headaches. There's just you and this electricity on the other end of the line called a fish," says Hopper.

  Before he ever ventured out to a stream, Hopper bought six flies and a rod. He began casting in the street outside his home for practice, and soon made his first trip to nearby Trammel Fork. He was literally hooked.

  "I'd been casting in the street outside my house for practice, but the first time I went fishing, I went to Trammel Fork. My wife rode along with me and stayed in the car, reading. When she looked up from her book, I had a hook in my neck. We had to go to the emergency room and have it cut out," says Hopper. After buying a fly rod for his wife, Susan, for an anniversary present, the Hoppers fish together, a hobby they both enjoy. "Some of my friends didn't think that was such a great gift, but I think it is very romantic. It allows us to spend time together and we both love it," Susan says.

  Hopper's passion recently found voice in a self-published book profiling legendary fly-fishers. "I was home for 10 weeks with a broken leg and I started rereading my old fly-fishing magazines. I thought about how great it would be to sit down and talk to some of these folks," says Hopper. "The choice to include their favorite waters, rods, and flies was natural. The pattern of tying a fly is called a recipe, so I just took it a step further, and also asked for their favorite food recipe."

  Hopper's convalescent pondering turned into Angler Profiles: A Collection of Some Legendary Anglers' Favorite Flies, Foods, Rods & Waters. Through in-depth research and Herculean perseverance, Hopper interviewed 275 fly-fishers about their choicest fishing waters, their favorite recipes, and their preferred flies and rods. The book includes champions in the fly-fishing world such as Stu Apte, Leon Chandler, Joan Salvato Wulff, Lefty Kreh, and Jack Samson. Kentuckians Denny Crum and Byron Crawford and former U.S. Presidents George Bush and Jimmy Carter are included in the list, as well as Hopper's wife and his fly buddies of the Sons of the Cumberland, a Kentucky nonprofit fly-fishing fellowship that practices catch and release fly-fishing.

  "I collected names of about 1,000 people from magazines and fly-fishing publications. I didn't really know the right people to contact, but I sent out 250 letters in the first mailing and got about 15 back," says Hopper. According to Hopper there are approximately six to nine million people worldwide in the fly-fishing community. However, it wasn't until Joan Wulff, known to many as the First Lady of Fly Fishing and wife of fly-fishing great Lee Wulff, responded that Hopper knew he had a marketable product.

  From a few initial responses, Hopper's mailbox was soon full with replies from writers, entrepreneurs, doctors, artists, professional fishing guides, chemists, editors, and engineers-all fishers contributing to Hopper's dream of a streamside "conversation" with some of fly-fishing's legends. "I think of the book as a conversation with these special guests, and anyone can pull up a chair and get comfortable. You are dining with your favorite fly-fishers, anglers whose lives are as storied as the famed waters they ply."

  In a converted bedroom in his home, with a picture of the Cumberland River, fishing hats, and fly-fishing relics surrounding him, Hopper turned out the 352-page book with 153 photographs, 58 pen-and-ink drawings, and 270 recipes from fly-fishers all over the United States in just 20 months.
"I'm the kind of guy who had to take a course just to learn how to turn a computer on, so this whole thing has been a great experience," says Hopper.

  Arranged alphabetically, each profile includes a favorite quote. Former President Jimmy Carter says, "The trout don't give a darn if you're president of the United States, or a local farmer, or a high school kid." There's also Jodi Pate's Peanut Butter Pie and writer Bob Newman's Rekonovich Mexicali Moose, which serves one Marine or six sailors. 

  Just like fly-fishing, publishing has hooked Hopper. In his upcoming second book, Pet Peeves & Angling Etiquette, Hopper investigates angler etiquette and fly-fishers' pet peeves. Meanwhile, Hopper and Susan can be found at their favorite spot in Trammel Fork, testing recipes-for flies, that is.

  Russell Hopper's Angler Profiles: A Collection of Some Legendary Anglers' Favorite Flies, Foods, Rods & Waters is 32'available for $28.20 (includes shipping and handling) from The Hope Group Inc., 510 Fairmont Avenue, P.O. Box 62, Bowling Green, KY 42102-0062.

  A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Angler Profiles is earmarked for the following nonprofit organizations: The American Museum of Fly Fishing, Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum, Federation of Fly Fishers, and Trout Unlimited.


Russell Hopper bio

Hometown: Bowling Green
Career Start: Accountant, Ernst & Young-Nashville, Tennessee
Current Job: Certified drug and alcohol counselor, Bowling
     Green Medical Center
Years Fly Fishing: Six seasons
Favorite Rod: 5 wt. 8' 6'' graphite
Rods Owned: Five
Favorite Flies:
     Dry-Royal Wulff 
     Wet-G.R. Hare's Ear
     Nymph-B.H. Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail
     Streamer-C.H. Olive Woolly Bugger
     Terrestrial-Crayfish
Favorite U.S. River: Pere-Marquette, Michigan
Favorite Home River: Cumberland River, Kentucky
Favorite Stream: Trammel Fork, Kentucky