Pocket Water The Drake Turns 25!
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om Bie is crazy like a fox. Twenty-five years ago as he was shuffling around the greater Jackson, Wyoming, region, juggling jobs as a fishing guide, rafting guide, taxi driver and part-time outdoors columnist for the Guide, Bie took a leap of faith and decided to print a magazine that tapped into the “counter-culture” of fly fishing, well before anyone really had a grasp of what fly-fishing “culture” really was, let alone a “counter-culture.” Granted, several years earlier, there was “The Movie.” Robert Redford’s film adaptation of Norman Maclean’s novella A River Runs Through It, had attracted a plethora of dot-com millionaires and slumbering traditionalists toward newfound appreciation of fly fishing… but many of them had nowhere to really land. In a media world that was so bythe-book staid and stiff (how many times, really, could you digest another take on “Lefty’s advice for double-hauling” or “when best to deploy 7x tippet?”) The Drake broke the mold and handed the microphone to a different generation of anglers who wanted to focus more on the “why” instead of the “how.” “It was ‘anti-establishment’ back then, for sure, because it wasn’t just about the ‘where-to’ or the ‘how-to’ stuff, but as things evolved, the storytelling niche took off,” Bie recently explained. Bie published a single issue of The Drake in 1998, and did so for nine years. He didn’t make any money with the magazine until taking it quarterly in 2011, instead leaning on day jobs with other gigs editing and contributing to Paddler, Skiing, Powder and freelancing. “I was fortunate as a freelancer to work with talented editors at magazines like Men’s Journal and Outside during some of the last years that kind of mentoring existed,” he explained. He also never lost faith in fly fishing. A native Oregonian, his heart gravitated to the rivers and fishing.
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“I don’t think The Drake could have happened in skiing, or paddling or some other realm,” Bie said. “It was destined to be about fly fishing.” In turn, the fly-fishing world, especially the writers and photographers, sensed the vibe, and responded in kind. It wasn’t about money, or widespread distribution. Instead, it became about being in this “place” with other artists who felt a kinship and connection to grassroots fly fishing. It was much like talented musicians signing with Bloodshot Records or recording in a little studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, just because of the freedom that afforded them. Drake writers and shooters craved an opportunity to play
the way they really wanted to, without a team of editors at a commercial media group sucking the soul out of what they had to say. The beauty these days is that Bie still develops talent. There are minions of fishers who write, and far fewer established writers who fish. In The Drake’s “Tippets” section, Bie makes a point to develop and shine a light on emerging voices. In some issues, 90 percent of those contributors have never been published before. It takes a real editor—arguably a lost breed in this day and age—to make that magic happen. Thanks. Godspeed, and here’s to many more, Tom Bie. —K. Deeter
“I don’t think The Drake could have happened in skiing, or paddling or some other realm. It was destined to be about fly fishing.”—Tom Bie
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