In the mid-1970s, Bill Morrison was a teenager who read about fly fishing in Field & Stream magazine. He borrowed his grandfather’s fiberglass fly rod and bought some popper bugs at Security Sporting Goods, the only sporting goods store in Alexandria at the time. Then he went out to the pond on the family’s farm and taught himself how to fly fish.
For the past 50 years, he’s been fly fishing on and off and passing on his knowledge of fly fishing to other anglers.
On Wednesday, Fly Fishers International recognized Morrison, of Pineville, as one of two honorees for the 2022FFI Fly Fishing Skills Education Award. The ceremony was an online event held over Zoom. The event recognized fly fishermen from all over the country, including Alaska, New England and Florida, Morrison said. He was nominated by local people and some others in New Orleans. Last year Morrison was named “Fly Fisher of the Year 2021″ by the Gulf Coast Council of Fly Fishers International.
Fly Fishers International is one of the largest fly fishing associations in the world with 300 affiliate clubs, including the Kisatchie Fly Fishers, of which Morrison is a member. FFI has about 12,000 members in more than 20 countries. FFI gives out 10 awards each year for casting, fly tying and education.
“This was an awesome honor for him,” said his wife, Debbie Morrison. “He was recognized for his accomplishments in fly casting and his willingness to share his fishing skills with others and promote fly fishing.”
Morrison has been a member of the Kisatchie Fly Fishers for six years and said the award was more about the club’s education efforts.The club has about 90 members.
“The club has a fairly extensive education program where we teach fly casting, fly fishing in general, fly tying,” he said. “We meet twice a month out at the Westside Library. Those education efforts were part of the reason for this award. Of course, many individuals in the Kisatchie Club are part of that education.”
The club meets at 6:30 p.m. two Mondays each month at the Westside Regional Library. Before each meeting they have fly casting practice at 5:30 p.m. The club has several FFI certified casting instructors, like Morrison, who can help people learn the “ins and outs” of fly casting.
“We have a fly tying class on the second Monday of the month,” Morrison said, that he usually leads or gets someone else to teach. “We have a real active fly-tying class every month for the club. And we do a regular meeting every fourth Monday of the month.”
He also directs the Kisatchie Fly Fishers club’s annual Fly Fishing 101 and chairs the club’s Tying Committee.
His biography on the FFI site states that Morrison created a series of “how-to” videos for other clubs to use on how to do meetings and tying sessions via Zoom and shared his expertise on remote learning.
Among his many projects was the initiation of the club’s annual “Mixed Bag Contest.” As anglers catch a diversity of species, they can use a database to learn about the fish and their habitats.
“It gives us a lot of satisfaction and gratification to see other people learn about fly fishing and enjoy the sport that we love so much,” Morrison said.
Louisiana has a huge array of fly fishing opportunities, from the salt water marshes down south to the local lakes and creeks in Central Louisiana, he said. Fly fishermen can fish for the same species fishermen with conventional gear do, such as carp, blue gill or large mouth bass.
For salt water fly fishing, the Big Lake area south of Lake Charles and the Pointe-aux-Chenes south of Houma offer excellent kayak and fly fishing, said Morrison.
“Many of us fish the marsh out of kayaks with our fly rods because they work really well in getting up into the shallow ponds of the marsh,” he said. “But those two areas are my favorite areas for fishing saltwater.”
As for fresh water fly fishing, he likes all of the typical places that conventional gear fishermen fish. Local places like Kincaid Lake, Cotile Lake, Sibley Lake in Natchitoches, Spring Bayou in Marksville and the Cane River all are excellent fly fishing areas, he said.
“So many people in Louisiana think fly fishing is just for trout up in the mountains of Arkansas or Colorado,” Morrison said.
