Passing of a good Friend

[Micheal Kyle]

I'm not sure if this is the right way to tell everyone that knows David Freeman, But he passed away Wednesday night. He was very knowledgable about fly fihsing and was well known for the inovations on White Bass Flies. The funeral will be Monday at 12:30 is at Gorman-Sharpf Funeral Home in Springfield. I have a donation box here at the shop for him, we are going to make a memeroial for him I'm not sure if we know where just yet. David was a good freind to everyone that knew him.

David was the person that a lot of us would turn to when it came time for the White Bass and the Brown runs and when I would see him I knew that is was about time. He loved to share the information that he knew with everyone that would ask. I'm not quite sure how many question I asked him but belive me it was a lot but I can't remember one that he did not answer.

David will be missed and remembered for the diffrence that he made in each and every one of us. Thanks for the good times!

[Phil Lilley]

I met Dave in the shallows at outlet #3 a couple of years ago. He was a quite person and didn't like crowds. He like to fish his 2-scud rig under a 1/2 palsa 18 inches deep and fish it dead. He'd spot fish, casting to a tailing rainbow in the shallows and let the scud sit still till the trout was close- then he'd twitch the float and nail the fish.

He tied a unique scud. He showed me how he tied them one day. He'd cut his fibers in 1/2 inch sections and would actually stack them like deer hair and use a dubbing loop to spin the fibers to the hook. When he was finished it looked like a tightly packed furry wooly. Then he'd trim it according to what he wanted it to look like- a scud or a sow bug. He'd use gray antron.

He wouldn't use 7x. He said if they wouldn't hit using 6x he'd go home.

Quite a guy. I enjoyed his company.

[GrantJ]

Sorry to bring this old thread back to life but David was my uncle and I can't express how happy it made me feel to stumble across yall's kind words about him. He was an amazing guy and I still remember him and my dad teaching me to cast and how to tie any knot I would ever need for fishing about 20 years ago. I just happened to stumble on your forum while looking him up on Google. Thank you guys so much!

[Phil Lilley]

I still hear people talk about David in our trout circles...  he made an impression on a lot of people.