849 | The Real Story Behind A River Runs Through It with John Maclean
Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing Podcast
Dave Stewart
4.7 • 530 Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2025
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
849 Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/849
Presented by: Jackson Hole Fly Company, Drifthook Fly Fishing, Fish The Fly
Some stories follow you your whole life, and John MacLean grew up inside one of the most meaningful ones ever tied to fly fishing. In this episode, we look past the nostalgia and into the real heart of A River Runs Through It — the family, the grief, the responsibility, and the loss that shaped his father's writing.
John is a journalist and author of Home Waters, and the son of Norman MacLean. He's spent decades tracing the real events behind the book and the movie — the slow rise of the original printing, the truth of Paul's murder, the guilt Norman carried, and how writing became the only way to make sense of it all. This episode also follows John's own work, from fire investigations to his next book, marking fifty years of A River Runs Through It.
There's a lot here — family history, Montana stories, film moments, and the deeper current that still pulls at John today.
Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/849
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today we're tracing the story behind one of the most enduring works ever tied to fly fishing, |
| 0:07.0 | a story that quietly reshape the sport and touch readers far beyond the water's edge. |
| 0:11.6 | This conversation isn't about nostalgia, it's about family memory responsibility and the |
| 0:15.7 | kind of grief that doesn't fade just because the river keeps moving. |
| 0:19.4 | By the end of this episode, you'll see the book |
| 0:21.2 | not as a tale about fly fishing, but as a story of love, guilt, forgiveness, and the waters that stay |
| 0:26.6 | with us long after we leave them. This is the wet fly swing podcast where I show you the best |
| 0:31.0 | places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that |
| 0:35.1 | big trip, and what you can do to give back to the fish species |
| 0:37.9 | we all love. John McLean grew up inside a river runs through it. Journalists, author, and son of Norman |
| 0:44.5 | McLean. John has spent decades following the threads behind the greatest fly fishing movie of all time. |
| 0:50.1 | The real Paul, the truth of his death, the burden his father carried, and how the loss eventually became literature. |
| 0:57.0 | Here to share the journey and all the stories is John McLean. You can find his work at John McLean Books.com. |
| 1:04.7 | How's it going, John? It's going pretty well. Beautiful Indian summer weather here in Washington, D.C. |
| 1:12.4 | Oh, wow. Yeah, you're in D.C you go okay so this is getting off to a good start we've I've done a little |
| 1:17.3 | bit of fishing out on the East Coast not as much as the West but we'll probably touch on |
| 1:21.1 | that today and kind of what you're doing you're you're an author we're gonna talk about |
| 1:25.2 | some of the books probably the biggest thing here is you're the son of Norman McLean, one of the most, I mean, not even one of the most, the most famous fly fishing book and movie of all time. A river runs through it. So we're going to talk about that. Your connection over the years, it's come up probably more than anything else on the podcast. because people have talked whether you're a you know if you were in the industry of you know a guy |
| 1:46.1 | and a shop owner in 1992 three a river runs through it just |
| 1:49.8 | like catapulted fly fishing into the next level of you know bringing it to the mainstream um so we're |
| 1:55.6 | going to talk about all that today but first take us back you know you said you're uh you're in dc what's |
| 2:00.1 | happening this time are you? Are you busy writing? |
... |
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