Theodore Gordon, a consumptive

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 hermit, was a writer who fished the Catskill

Catskill Mountains

The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...

 region of New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 State in the late 19th century through the early 20th century. He wrote articles for the Fishing Gazette from 1890 on and published works in Forest and Stream

Forest and Stream

Forest and Stream was a magazine featuring hunting, fishing, and other outdoor activities. Founded in 1873, it was the ninth oldest magazine in the United States....

 from 1903, sometimes under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Badger Hackle. Though he never published a book he is often called the father of the American school of dry-fly fishing after he imported English fly-fishing tackle and flies and began to alter the English flies to precisely match the insects hatching in the Neversink

Neversink River

The Neversink River is a tributary of the Delaware River in southeastern New York in the United States...

, Beaverkill

Beaverkill River

The Beaver Kill, sometimes written as the Beaverkill or Beaverkill River, is a tributary of the East Branch of the Delaware River, approximately long, in the U.S. State of New York. The kill drains a area of the Catskill Mountains and has long been celebrated as one of the most famous trout...

 and Willowemoc rivers. Gordon lived his final years and died in 1915 in the Anson Knight house, now deep below the surface of the Neversink reservoir. In 1949, the author, Sparse Grey Hackle (alias for Alfred W. Miller), wrote in "The Quest for Theodore Gordon", that Gordon, "was in fact, the father of dry-fly angling in America."
John McDonald is responsible for compiling Gordon's writing into a book The Complete Fly Fisherman: The Notes and Letters of Theodore Gordon.