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Those of us who were fortunate enough to know George Glazener miss him. For those of you who didn't get the chance to know him, let me give you some brief (entirely too brief) highlights of George's life.

After service in WW2 (which, like so many WW2 vets, he never to my knowledge talked about), George used the GI Bill to get a college degree in Oil (Geology, I believe). He then worked for a major oil company for about 20 years.

During one stint out in oil country, George met his wife Nikki on a blind date. IIRC, he "wasn't too impressed" with her on the first date, but it led to a second, on which Nikki "wasn't too impressed" with George. Somehow, this led to a marriage of over 60 years that produced three sons.

After leaving the oil company, George did free lance oil consulting all around the world (for another 10 or 20 years). Since Nikki loved travel and fishing as much as George, she often accompanied him. They fished all over the world together.

As they got older, Nikki's health precluded much travel. But, they still loved to fish. George developed (built? maybe. stocked and managed? definitely) three ponds on one of their son's properties in Texas. This is how we met him here at the PBForum.

George loved CNBG, but really loved HSB. As ewest mentioned above, he was (one of) the first to utilize ladder stocking, mimicking a yearly spawn in terms of HSB size structure. Since the high water temperatures in Texas Summers made catching HSB very risky for the fish (who, if you don't know, will fight until they are literally exhausted), George invented artificial respiration for HSB. He kept a tank of water equipped with an aerator fed by pure Oxygen by the pond and used it to ensure just caught HSB recovered sufficiently to survive after release back into the pond.

George was a stickler for accuracy in fish photos, and decried the use of six foot long arms to make fish appear bigger than they really were. He is the reason most of my fish pictures include a ruler, a scale, or a can of Diet Mountain Dew to indicate true size.

I was lucky enough to get to know George better at the first two Pond Boss Conferences, where the old fly fisherman gave me a Temple Fork Outfitters (TFO) hat that I still wear, and informed of who Lefty Kreh was. George did design work and beta testing for TFO on fly rods especially made for pond fishing.

George was kind enough to correspond a lot with me when I was laid up after shoulder surgery which kept me from doing much for a month. He was like an extra grandpa to me, and he was my friend.