For a man whose primary claim to fame comes from casting a dummy lure into a plastic cup, Stan Fagerstrom has done pretty darned well for himself.
All those fans who marveled at his casting magic through two decades of entertainment and education at the Denver International Sportsmen’s Expositions lately might have worried about what happened to the old warrior.
Fret no more. At age 82, Fagerstrom is happily retired at a soft spot in the desert south of Phoenix, a station that represents a considerable contrast to his earlier state of affairs at a soggy launchpad on the central Oregon coast.
“I took me about six months to dry out,” he joked of a relocation made not for health or even convenience. “I have a son who lives near here in Chandler. It was time to consolidate things.”
More recently, Fagerstrom has slipped back into the news as a 2006 inductee into the Professional Bass Fishing Hall of Fame. This might seem an unusual honor in that we never saw Stan prancing across a stage holding a fat paycheck for winning some big-money tournament.
He earned his laurels the old-fashioned way, through service to the sport. Fagerstrom wrote thousands of articles and gave even more demonstrations that, above all, fishing is fun and almost anyone can do it.
A newspaperman for 40 years, Fagerstrom’s very existence might serve as a beacon for those getting up in age wondering what to do with themselves.
His example: Give something back to the world and don’t slow down too much.
Still keeping a schedule that might confound much younger men, Fagerstrom regularly conducts programs for Arizona schoolkids, delivering a tutorial that comes in two parts. The first is an unabashed commercial for the delights of the lifetime sport of fishing. The other is the unspoken lesson that older people can do remarkable things, a concept often lost in today’s fixation on youth.
With his gray beard and a bit of a gimp from a recent hip surgery, Fagerstrom remains quite a sight with what sometimes seems like a baton twirler routine switching from one type of rod to another. All the while, he beats a steady tattoo on his targets with a variety of delightful tricks that also demonstrate the nuances of the cast.
Using his wife, long-suffering after 60 years of marriage, as a target, he recently demonstrated his skill in the living room at his home. The line and lure did danced magically around Anita Fagerstrom, who at that moment must have been giving thanks that her husband hadn’t evolved as a knife thrower.
“I still can hit ’em pretty good,” Stan chuckled.
Fagerstrom almost certainly has hooked more people on casting and fishing than anyone else in the world, a distinction that earlier prompted his induction into the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame.
“But that’s only because I’ve been doing it so long,” he said.
Fagerstrom is a World War II veteran who earned two Bronze Stars for valor during island assaults in the South Pacific. Even as he laments the passing of so many of his old battle mates, he shows little sign of slowing down. Fagerstrom still travels widely, writes regular columns on the Internet and keeps current with a lineup of sponsors that might bring envy to most tournament regulars.
“I look at myself and say, ‘Stan, you’re the luckiest old son-of-a-gun who ever existed.”‘
It’s an assessment that can’t be far from wrong.
Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
