Vale Warryn Germon

Not too many would know of his association with a couple of international websites; those being The Fiberglass Flyrodders out of the West Coast of America and Partridge of Redditch in England.

Warryn’s association with the Flyrodders was especially close to his heart; he frequently contributed to their forums, especially the fly tying pages, of which he was one of the instigators in setting up. He made many friends on this site; they swapped information on techniques and would often swap flies. In reading the threads on that forum you can see that Warryn was highly thought of as a fly fisher and a developer of flies.

In communicating this week with Cameron Mortenson, the moderator of the fly tying forum, he told me that Warryn had been invited to join the “CLUB”, a special portion of that website that was only available to selected people. As I speak, a Valé is being prepared by Cameron to salute Warryn and will be posted on their website.

This termite was one of the last flies that Warryn tied; it was to complement an article he was doing for the Fiberglass Flyrodders website in America (pic taken 2/7/08)

This was the biggest fish that Warryn caught in his last season of fishing his favourite water, the little Rubicon River. It went just over 20 inches.

All I can say with Warryn’s passing is that there will be a lot less nervous fish in our streams this year. We will miss you my friend.

Mick Hall

During the last season we had the opportunity to fish together on a lot of occasions. We both knew that it would be his last season and just before his passing he told me that it was one of best seasons ever on the Rubicon.

Warryn Germon had been suffering from lung cancer over the last year and sadly he passed away quietly whilst in Alexandra Hospital. He was buried in the Alexandra Cemetery on the 15th August.

Warryn told me a number of times that funerals were for other people and that is the way he boxed it in his mind. It was his way of handling complex situations.

I suppose in speaking on behalf of the fly fishing fraternity we have lost a great contributor of knowledge within our circle. Warryn was to many a great flyflicker. To me he was unique, for it was his nature to think deeply about things that interested him. He would box those thoughts and once satisfied with his decision, would lock them away. Once done it was almost impossible to change his mind.

We fished a lot together and Warryn was a frequent visitor to our home where we sat, drank coffee and talked about flies, bugs, fly tying materials and all things fishing.

Often, days later, he would come back to me with his final thoughts on one of the many topics we had discussed, some I had even forgotten about but that was the nature of the man; he was stubborn and very much set in his ways. It was also hard to get a smile from him because of his serious nature but when you did, it was often followed by deep laughter.

As with a lot of fishermen, Warryn was also a little secretive about many of his fishing spots and it was also very difficult to get him to give you one of his flies but when he did, it was with great celebration on his behalf. I guess I am fortunate as I think I would be one of the few to have a collection of his favourite patterns.

Warryn only used flies that he had designed himself; he would sometimes try flies made by other people but it would not be long before he had an improved version of his own making. In fact everything that Warryn did with his fishing was based on his own assumptions and knowledge.