Traveling on business, he also visited some of the world's best fishing streams, feeding a passion that had begun during boyhood vacations on the Pere Marquette River in Michigan.
Ernest Schwiebert, also known as Ernie, was a pioneer in the fishery conservation movement and was involved in the founding of Trout Unlimited, Theodore Gordon Flyfishers and the Federation of Fly Fishers.
He has served as a Director of both Theodore Gordon Flyfishers and the Atlantic Salmon Federation, and on the scientific advisory boards of TU, FFF and The Nature Conservancy.
Gingrich considered Schwiebert's position impregnable as the leading angling author of our time and that he had an impressive ability to absorb entomological detail and convert it into pleasing prose for his readers.
The following excerpt from the closing speech at 2005 opening ceremonies at the American Museum of Fly Fishing typifies the eloquence of Ernie Schwiebert and his writings.
My obsession with fishing began in childhood, watching bluegills and pumpkinseeds and perch under a rickety dock, below a simple cedar-shingled cottage in southern Michigan.
It flowed swift and crystalline over the bottom of ochre cobblestones and pebbles and like Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River,” it mysteriously disappeared into thickets of cedar sweepers downstream.
It was a different kind of fishing, utterly unlike watching a red-and-white bobber on a tepid childhood pond, with its lilypad and cattail margins, and its callings of redwinged blackbirds.
His amber line worked back and forth in the sunlight, and he dropped his fly on the water briefly, only to tease it free of the current, and strip the moisture from its barbules with more casting.
Dressing such confections of fur, feathers and steel is beautiful, and our worktables are littered with gorgeous scraps of tragopan and golden pheasant and blue chattered and Coq de Leon.