Donald Wayne Kirk grew up being taught basic fishing and camping skills by his father, Arnold Kirk. Most of his summers were spent camping in the mountains. His father and his mother, Geneva Kirk, were avid fishermen as well as semi-professional fly tiers. Don is a self-taught fly fisherman who tied his own flies in his early teens. His father preferred fishing from a boat to scampering up creeks and was lukewarm to fly fishing, preferring to fish for sauger, panfish, bass, catfish and trout in about that order. Besides tying and selling jig-style flies, Don’s father made his own molds well before these were commercially available for do-it-yourself anglers. Don wrote about this in Field & Stream in 1982. No doubt, Don’s father was his greatest influence. By comparison, his mother was a passive fisherman. While she enjoyed fishing and camping, what she enjoyed most about these activities was that that they were family outings. His first wife, Joann, was an avid fly fisherman and an excellent photographer. They were married twenty-five years and have three sons and two grandsons. Don’s wife, Leah, is an educator and theater director. In 1971, Don got “out” of high school with a diploma largely on the assumption by school administrators that within a few months he would be wading through rice paddies in Vietnam. His departure with a diploma was in no way related to academic merit. Unknown to Don at the time, he was a “trout bum”. On three occasions, he began college, and each time it interfered with fly fishing for trout. He finally graduated with honors from Hardknock Universtiy. In the mid-1970s, on a lark Don decided to write a guide book to fishing for trout in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. At roughly the same time he began writing a weekly outdoors column for his hometown newspaper and writing magazine articles. By 1980, Don’s first book was published, and he was writing for dozens of magazines and columns in most of the newspapers in East Tennessee. A couple thousand magazine articles and five books later, he became the editor-in-chief of Thickett Publications where Don started over two dozen magazines on hunting, fishing and other subjects. His book, Fly Fishing Guide to the Great Smoky Mountains was published in 1997 shortly before he left Thickett Publishing which was then known as Vulcan Outdoors. Don and Brock Ray co-hosted television’s “Bassin’ Mexico” and SiriusXM’s “The Interstate Sportsman.” And they were among the first to publish several digital magazines. In 2011, Greg Ward and Don co-authored Ultimate Fly Fishing Guide to the Great Smoky Mountains. In 2013, Don launched his online Southern Trout Magazine and published his Fishers Guide to Tennessee. Don’s book Hatches and Fly Patterns of the Great Smoky Mountains was published in June, 2014. Wing shooting, antique fishing tackle, cigars and inexpensive wine are Don’s current interests. Don loves catching smallmouth bass, followed by Atlantic salmon and Southern Appalachian brook trout. Don’s largest fish ever caught was a marlin caught off the Outer Banks of North Carolina in the early-1980s. His favorite fishing partners were his father, sons and grandsons, Vic Stewart, Jim Ellison, Marc Sudheime and Craig Haney. He has shown many how to catch trout on a fly and been a member of Trout Unlimited and FFI over the years, and an Isaack Walton honor. You can e-mail Don at don@southerntrout.com or visit the magazine website www.southerntrout.com. Donald Wayne Kirk — Inducted in the Communications category as the author of numerous fly fishing publications and for trail blazing online Southern Trout Magazine.
