Iconic storyteller and self-described trout bum John Gierach died on Thursday, Oct. 3, after suffering a massive heart attack. His passing was first reported in a Facebook post by Gierach’s long-time friend, AK Best.

Over the course of his writing career, Gierach authored more than 20 books and countless magazine articles and columns for publications ranging from TROUT Magazine to Sports Illustrated, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He is known for his conversational, and honest writing style that speaks to millions of fly fishers the world over. His works include “Even Brook Trout Get the Blues,” “Another Lousy Day in Paradise,” and “Standing in a River Waving a Stick.” He was honored by the then-U.S. Federation of Fly Fishers in 1994 with its prestigious Roderick Haig-Brown Award, and in 2015, he was inducted into the Catskills Fly Fishing Hall of Fame.

In 1992, until the magazine ceased publication in the spring of 2017, Gierach wrote the back-page column for Fly Rod & Reel. Each of his pieces was illustrated by well-known fly-fishing artist Bob White. Once the magazine folded in 2017, Gierach and White continued their writing and illustrating partnership at TROUT Magazine, the voice of Trout Unlimited.

For many, Gierach’s was the voice they heard in their heads when they fished. His simple, yet thoughtful approach to fly fishing resonated with fly fishers all over the world. Through his books, articles and columns, he reached millions. Yet, within the tightly knit fly fishing community, Gierach was eminently approachable and, as his collaborator and friend White said on Friday, “he was the same way in real life as he was in his writing.”

“I’ve been lucky to get to spend some time with him over the years,” White said. Indeed, the pair has collaborated on about 175 projects over the years. They have fished together all over the continent, from the wilds of Bristol Bay in Alaska to hidden brook-trout creeks in Labrador.

“He was the real deal,” White said. “He was honest and sincere. He had a sharp sense of irony. You knew exactly what you were getting when you talked with John.”

Gierach graduated from Findlay College in Ohio with a degree in philosophy and a minor in English. He moved to Colorado in 1969 and started to fly fish every day while he worked at a silver mine. Over the years, his writing became the iconic voice of every angler who romanticized the simple life of a trout bum.

On Friday, social media and Gierach fan pages lamented the loss of the well-known angling wordsmith. Mike Dvorak, a friend of Gierach, shared the news on his Facebook page on Friday, noting that he’d just spoken to the celebrated author not long before his death, and that the two were planning a spring fishing trip. In a brief Facebook exchange, Dvorak mentioned that it felt like he’d known Gierach “all my life,” but their relationship only stretched back a decade or so.

According to Dvorak, the prolific author passed away at about 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 3, at UC Heath Longs Peak Hospital in Longmont, Colo. Longmont is near Gierach's home in Lyons, Colo., a small community northwest of Denver on the St. Vrain River, a small river that appeared frequently in Gierach’s writing.

Correction: An earlier version of this story specified John Gierach's age as 76. Gierach was 78 at the time of his death.