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He was truly an icon. As a kid, I remember seeing a picture similar to the one a few posts back. He was wading with a jumping snook on the line. I had caught a few small snook, but that picture really inspired Snook Fever. Baits, Rigs and Tackle and From Hook to Table have been fantastic resources for me over the years. Had the pleasure of meeting him at a FS show 10 years ago. He will be missed.
:Griz
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr
Vic Dunaway of Florida Sportsman dead at 82.
By Frank Sargeant
[email protected]
Vic Dunaway died Thursday in an Ocala hospice at 82.
For decades, he was outdoors editor of the Miami Herald when it was Florida’s largest newspaper, director of the Miami MET, then the world’s largest fishing tournament, and then went on for decades more beginning in 1969 as a founding editor of Florida Sportsman Magazine, Florida’s largest fishing publication.
Vic was a real fishing celebrity, far more than just another outdoors writer. He was a story teller, a true raconteur who had a funny, finny or ribald story to fit every occasion. People loved to be around him.
“Vic was the ultimate combination of talents and skills and demonstrated a unique ability to both know how to get the most out of the outdoors and then convey that material to his readers with wit and clarity,” said FS Founder Karl Wickstrom at the magazine’s headquarters in Stuart.
For years, Vic wrote and photographed features as well as columns—he was the heart and soul of the magazine, the guy everybody wanted to be like, who took fishing just seriously enough, knew everything there was to know inshore, offshore and in fresh water—and yet who never greeted a broken line or a slipped knot with anything but a grin and a joke.
He had no apparent ego about his work, though he was one of the best ever at conveying the intricacies of light tackle fishing—many of the tactics which he helped develop.
The very first time I was welcomed into that close fraternity of regular Florida Sportsman writers was nearly my last, I must admit. After dinner at Port of the Islands, a covey of the world’s finest outdoors writers were in Dunaway’s suite, rigging up for tomorrow’s exploits on the Fakka Union and surrounding bays for snook, tarpon and other fish that for me until then had been only creatures of dreams. Lefty Kreh was there. Mark Sosin was there. Herb Allen was there. Mr. Dunaway was there—and so was a kid from Homosassa who had three published fishing articles to his name.
Dunaway was a knot- tying fan most of his life, inventor of the Uniknot that is among the most widely used fishing knots in existence, and he was fanatical about building the perfect leader that would not slip or break at the knot when under maximum stress from the giant fish he regularly caught on amazingly light gear.
Vic tied a Bimini Twist in his spinning tackle that evening, which was the key allowing him and the other experts to land jumbo fish on light monofilament line—the doubled line created by the knot gave 100 percent line strength on the line to leader connection.
The only problem was that every Bimini took about five minutes to tie—the knot had to be rolled back over on itself with just the right amount of pressure to function. You then secured it with a couple of half-hitches and if you had an extra pair of hands available, they were employed to nip the tag end while the knot was still under pressure.
Because I was the guy sitting closest, Dunaway asked me to trim the knot.
To which I responded by nipping the running line into the Bimini rather than the tag end! (Jeez, it all looked so complicated!)
My move brought a hoot of laughter from the assembled majesty of the fishing world, but Dunaway laughed loudest. Those guys for years afterwards never let me forget whacking off Vic’s knot—but every one of them went on to help me in some way.
It was Vic who called to tell me that Herb Allen, for 20 years the outdoors editor of the Tampa Tribune, was retiring, and that he thought I should try for the job. It was a call that changed the rest of my life.
Vic was the guy who largely popularized light tackle flats fishing in Florida for the first generation to take an interest in it. Along with a dozen or so other top anglers and guides between Miami and Key West, Vic pioneered catching bonefish, permit, redfish, tarpon and snook by fishing waters barely knee-deep, at a time when the rest of Florida had no idea the fish were there, or that they could be caught on spindly 8-pound-test spinning tackle or even fly rods.
His column, “A Waterfront View”, ran virtually forever in Florida Sportsman Magazine, and made Vienna sausages a running joke among saltwater anglers to this day. He was author of a number of books, one of which, “Baits, Rigs and Tackle” sold some 300,000 copies.
Vic asked that his ashes be spread off Cape Sable in the Everglades and that there be no formal service other than a gathering of family, according to Karl Wickstrom.
RIP, Vic.
http://www.amazon.com/big-bend/dp/1456453270
RIP Vic
X2
He was a big reason I developed a love for fishing and the outdoors.
RIP, Mr. Dunaway.
80's. I couldn't wait for the next issue of FS to hit the magazine rack, and as soon as I got it, would race past Wickstrom's latest sermon to read what crazy, silly, informative topic Dunaway had chosen to write about.
He is missed.
His books are a great resource.
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr
He laughed as he signed it and said, "one day these will go bad, so you better eat them soon."
Still have that signed can on a shelf next to my fishing books.
I took Vic fly fishing in VA Beach.
It was the first time he had seen redfish stacked like cordwood and hitting surface flies at night.
Every cast, he'd get hit and every time he would say "I can't believe this, I can't believe this..."
We had a ball...He told me to come down and fish with him but I always put it off...
Rest in Peace my friend.