Thank you for all the stories, all the laughs, all the fishing advice, all the good times out on the bay, up in Vermont on the Battenkill, out at Calvert's farm, down in southern Maryland on that incredible bass pond with the hogs under logs. Thanks for all that fun we had trying to find Chessie The Chesapeake Bay Monster. Thanks for the little book of Native American wisdom and philosophy I kept in my fishing vest for 20 years and now have passed on to my son. Thanks for being an inspiration to outdoors writers everywhere. Thanks for being one of the most interesting men in my world -- as close to Hemingway as it gets, but without all the anger and other psychological baggage -- and for trying all these years to get people to care about the natural treasures around them. Many of us do because of you.

Bill Burton, rest in peace.