DAVID SCHOLES

1925–2005

David Scholes was one of Tasmania’s best-known trout anglers and authors. When David taught himself fly fishing at age ten, it was the start of what was to become a lifelong passion. In 1950, he and his wife Pat moved from Melbourne to Launceston to be closer to Scholes’ developing love of river angling. In 1955 he and several other keen anglers founded the Flyfishers Club of Tasmania. In 1961, Mr Scholes published the first of his 13 books, Fly Fisher in Tasmania. Throughout his life he fished and wrote about fishing. His prose and artwork was, and still is, loved by a huge number of flyfishers. Fly Fisher in Tasmania was a milestone technical book and even though it was written in the early 1960s nothing has surpassed it. Today collectors not only from Australia but overseas seek his works, in doing so, refer to them as valuable additions not only to their libraries but as a valuable addition to that maze of angling literature. The passing of Scholes left a hole in the world of fly fishing, but his written legacy of how good it really was will remain with the generations of fishers to come.