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Ray Bergman (1891-1967)

    John Raymond Bergman was born on July 15th, 1891 in Nyack, New york. At the young age of 25 he opened a sporting goods store in Nyack. Ray an avid flyfisherman from his early teens was forced to close up his shop in 1921 due to financial difficulties. It was at about this time that Ray began to write Outdoor stories and in this same year Ray had his first outdoor article published in "Forest and Stream" (now Field and Stream). Ray was at the beginning point of a writing career that he would continue for the next several decades.A short time after Ray closed up his business in Nyack, Ray accepted a sales clerk position with the sporting goods retailer Williams Mills and Son in New York City, where he continued on staff for the next 8 years. During this time, Ray continued to write and continued to be published. In 1927 Ray Bergman had an article published in "Outdoor Life" for the first time. He also took on the position of angling editor of "Hunting and Fishing" magazine and held that post until 1932, the year in which his book "Just Fishing" was published. In that same year Bergman began his own business, which he ran out of his home in Nyack, called "Ray Bergman Angling Specialties" a mail order business.Bergman who had begun tying flies in earnest in 1926, now began to tie commercially.

    1934 saw Bergman accept the position of Fishing Editor for "Outdoor Life". Bergman would stay employed at Outdoor Life until his retirement in 1959. The year of 1938 would be the high water mark for Bergman's writing, for in this year he would publish one of the greatest books in angling history the classic "Trout". By the time Bergman published the 2nd edition of "Trout" in 1952, Bergman would claim to have tied some 200,000 (two hundred thousand) flies. Ray Bergman wrote about all types of fishing, some of his works are "Freshwater Bass" pub. in 1942 and "With Fly, Plug and Bait" pub. in 1947. Though known mostly for his publishing of over 500 hundred wet fly patterns in Trout, Bergman liked to fish the dry fly best. Businessman, Editor, Author, Fly-tier, Fisherman, the man who was once referred to as "The Babe Ruth of Fishing", John Raymond Bergman passed away on February 17, 1967 in his beloved home in Nyack, New York at the age of 75.