Profiling fly fishing educator George Daniel for PennStater magazine
From inspiration and ideas to executing a feature story, it takes a team, trust, and a little bit of good timing. Sounds like a successful fishing trip, too
I have proud news this week. After a good seven months in the works, my profile of George Daniel, the head of Penn State's iconic fly fishing program, is the cover story of this month's PennStater magazine.
Any Nittany Lion alum in good standing should see it in their mailbox soon. You can also read it here, on the PennStater site:
July / August 2025
This is my first print mag cover story in over a decade, which feels shocking to type out loud. Last time, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with musician Nicolas Jaar, on assignment for fashion and culture magazine Flaunt. We had a frank conversation about making art, paradigm shifts, and extraterrestrials. Jaar wound up on that cover in Alexander McQueen.
Of course, this one is a little different. Alexander McQueen hasn't started making fly fishing apparel (despite the latest fly fishing fashion trends). Just the always-classy Orvis waders here.
If this is your first time hearing the name George Daniel, welcome to the rest of your fly-fishing life. George is one of the country's leading anglers, period. He teaches. He writes books and articles. He shoots beautiful photographs. He's been a large influence on my own angling, ever since I was given his breakout book, Dynamic Nymphing, published in 2011. For many of us, Dynamic Nymphing was our initial exposure to competitive fly fishing. It went tungsten-bead deep on the newest techniques George and his mates on Fly Fishing Team USA developed themselves and picked up from European anglers as part of their participation in the FIPS Mouche world tournament stage. These teams helped foster the Euro nymphing approach stateside.
As was my journalistic impulse at the time, I just had to speak with this person who was revealing these new truths. So I phoned up the fly shop where he worked, got his email address, and sent him a note. George was kind enough to give this site its very first interview:
Nick Parish
It was an honor to continue that conversation on a different stage. To be able to tell the bigger tale of how he came to be responsible for the world's leading academic fly fishing program. But there are a couple little coincidences around this story. They leave me even more grateful for how it turned out.
Coincidence the first: I was able to pitch it to a former editor I'd worked with long before. Someone whose editorial leadership and style has been an influence on me.
It was probably, oh, 2007 or 2008, and I was deep in the sports world, working in the sports department of the New York Post. At the Post, I was an editorial clerk and fill-in reporter. But money was short, and I got the opportunity to do some freelance copyediting for a basketball magazine called Slam. I didn't know it walking in, but Slam shared space with hip-hop magazine XXL. Rappers would visit to chat. It was very cool. In a tiny back corner office—the SLAM Dome—a super-tight crew—Susan, Ben, Khalid, Lang, and editor Ryan Jones—toil putting out the monthly issues. They had inside jokes and fun banter. They had great sneakers. For a week every month, as the magazine was closing and the stories were all laid out to proof, I'd get to visit and make sure there weren't any typos.
I never let any errors through. (At least, that were major enough for Ryan to fire me. As far as I can recall.) I remember frequently coming in from late-night post-Post sessions achingly tired, trying to coax my brain into proofreading mode by sucking down bodega iced coffee. Ryan would even occasionally let me write stories, and offer charitable laughs at my attempts to join in on the all-star banter.
Sometimes I'd make the low-man run to the original Shake Shack to pick up lunch orders. Did I duck in to visit the Urban Angler, NYC's only indie fly shop, at that time across Madison Park? It's funny how the Shake Shack line was extra-long some days.
At any rate, I drifted away from sports media, but invariably some cool thing the Slam crew did would cross my radar. Like the time Ryan interviewed author Sherman Alexie about basketball, a conversation dripping with style and passion, a strong, consistent editorial voice. And, probably, some kid somewhere, leafing through Slam at the library, deciding to give Alexie a try around the corner in fiction.
Ryan eventually parted ways with the magazine. A Penn State graduate, he departed the city for Happy Valley, to take over editorship of its alumni magazine. I crammed a Post-It in some fold of my brain: Pitch something to him one day. If it's a good idea, if anyone will get it, he will.
Late last year, when I read George's latest, Fly Fishing Evolution, the idea coalesced.
Several years ago, George had become the lead instructor of Penn State's angling program, while still working his tail off as an innovator in the fly fishing world, with regular columns and photo contributions to the sport's media. Joe Humphreys, his mentor, had passed the torch, and the program was officially re-christened the Joe Humphreys Fly Fishing Program. But Joe—now in his mid-90s—showed no signs of slowing. There was a meaningful profile there, not just of George, but the program's legacy, its history over the past century.
I pitched the story last fall, and Ryan was game. So, research and reporting began. Writing a feature like this, there are a lot of conversations and interviews that need to happen. With editors. With the subject. With sources. George was incredibly generous with his time. He and I talked on Mondays. We met early morning Pacific time, to work around his busy class and fishing schedule. I talked to folks in the program orbit: Previous program participants, school administrators, conservationists, even an academic studying the effect participation in the program has on student stress and anxiety. I dug through previous articles on the program to understand the whole timeline. I watched a great documentary on Joe. I took a lot of notes. Lastly, I wrote a few drafts, and and turned it in sometime around December. This ball of words that had started with just a few headings was now in its third or fourth variation. It was headed off to be evaluated and, hopefully, elevated.
And then, like that, it was out of my hands.
The second great coincidence is around the timing. The story was with the editorial team. It got the full treatment. Facts were checked. Follow-ups were sent. Details verified. But, by springtime, it had been on the shelf for long enough that I was getting itchy.
I wasn't sure, as is often the case, when the editorial team at PennStater would decide to run it. I'd check in with Ryan and he'd share updates. I knew, as an editor, it's a great feeling when you have material lined up for a few episodes in the future. It's money in the bank. (It happens here as well. Sometimes I can get ahead of my inherent tendency to procrastinate, and build a few CFS newsletters ahead of time. Not this week, as I'm working on this draft Sunday night after a long weekend camping on the John Day.)
As a writer, this is an anxious time. Stuff happens behind the scenes. You rely on trust. There's a very good chance—and it happens often—that priorities change, and the story is killed. I wasn't sure whether this would happen to here. I started to think about Plan B. Would another publisher buy it? Maybe a local newspaper? It was a long shot.
But Ryan had plans. I got a note from him in May: The profile was slated for the July / August issue. Nick Sloff, a photographer on the PennStater team, got a bunch of shots of George in action, and the great cover image. We added a few final tweaks, and it went into layout as the issue went to close.
George Daniel featured in the PennStater July / August 2025 | 📷 Nick Sloff
Everything is packaged up superbly. (You can leaf through the digital magazine here to see how the print layouts turned out.)
But here's the bit of serendipity that feels extra sweet: A few days before the PennStater story went live, I saw George had photographed and written about his mentor Joe for that month's issue Fly Fisherman. All about Joe's legacy, and their relationship.
It's a very thoughtful piece, so dig in there for some great anecdotes, and caring reflection on the relationship between Joe and George, and the spirit both men have brought to the program. In George's words, here's what stands out to me most of all:
This program is providing the greatest gift to all students interested in continuing fly fishing: “the gift of looking forward to something exciting.” If we want the next generation to have success in both personal and professional lives–a lifelong gift of fly fishing could be a good starting point.
Here, the "something exciting" isn't just trying new methods, and exploring new places. It's not just the fishing, but building relationships, and renewing old ones.
That's what this is all about.
Don't forget the Summer book club!
August 27th! Nature's Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy.
Pick up the book, and RSVP here to let me know you're coming. Then, start reading! I know a few folks (OK, just one, but not just me!) who literally read by the river this weekend.
(n.b. It is not required that you read by the river for the Read By the River book club. But, in the immortal words of Wooderson, it'd be a lot cooler if you did.)
Nick Parish
