Steve Raymond

Steve Raymond, a native of Bellingham, Washington, was born to parents who were both fly fishers and started him fishing at an early age. He later made friends with three of the great pioneers of Northwest fly fishing, Enos Bradner, Letcher Lambuth and Ralph Wahl, who became his fishing mentors. He also joined their club, the Washington Fly Fishing Club in Seattle, later serving as its president. He was a charter member of the Federation of Fly Fishermen, editor of its magazine, The Flyfisher, and later became an honorary life member of the FFF (now called  Fly Fishing International). 

A University of Washington graduate, Raymond served as a Navy officer, then embarked on a 30-year-career as a reporter, editor and manager at the Seattle Times. He also wrote frequently for other publications, most notably Sports Illustrated and Fly Fisherman, and his work eventually appeared in at least 24 magazines. He is author of a dozen fly-fishing books, including two award-winning classics, The Year of the Angler and The Year of the Trout, both celebrating the awe and privilege of fishing for beautiful wild fish in beautiful wild places. Other titles include Steelhead Country, The Estuary Flyfisher, Rivers of the Heart, Blue Upright, Nervous Water and Trout Quintet.

Of his books, Fly Fisherman magazine said: “Steve Raymond long ago established himself as an important literary voice and environmental conscience for contemporary fly fishing. He is the kind of regional writer whose fidelity to what he knows makes him universal.” He also reviewed fishing books for several publications over a period of 35 years, and his work was published in nine anthologies. His manuscripts and papers are now part of special collections at the Western Washington University libraries in Bellingham.

After his retirement from the Seattle Times, Raymond became editor of Fly Fishing in Salt Waters magazine until its sale. He received the Roderick Haig-Brown Award for significant contributions to angling literature, the ”Angul” Award for “outstanding contributions to the Heritage and Preservation of the Arte and Science of Fly Fishing in British  Columbia,” the Letcher Lambuth Angling Craftsman and Tommy Brayshaw Awards from the Washington Fly Fishing Club, and the Gil Nyerges Award from the Whidbey Island Fly Fishing Club. He represented Washington State’s fly-fishing clubs in negotiations with President Carter’s Task Force on Northwest Fisheries, seeking settlement of the sometimes violent conflict over local tribal fishing rights, and served as Western vice president of the Museum of American Fly Fishing. He also curated a highly successful exhibit on the history of Northwest fly fishing at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in his home town of Bellingham. 

Though he has fished all over the world, Raymond’s first love has always been the trout, steelhead and salmon of Pacific Northwest waters. He pioneered fly fishing for winter steelhead in the saltwater estuaries of Puget Sound and introduced the now popular tactic of using skated dry flies to catch sea-run cutthroat and coho salmon in those estuaries. He also is originator of several Northwest trout and steelhead fly patterns.

Raymond and his wife, Joan—now a “retired” fly fisher, but a good one!—reside on Whidbey Island in northern Puget Sound.