David Van Lear

David Van Lear is a retired professor of forestry at Clemson University where he taught for 35 years. He is married to Carolyn and they have two grown children. David was smitten with a love of fishing at age 12 after his dad built a summer cabin on the beautiful Cowpasture River in Virginia. After graduating high school in 1958, David and his best friend took the train to Yellowstone National Park where he worked for five summers as a cabin boy and then as a bellhop while pursuing BS and MS degrees in forestry at Virginia Tech. These jobs allowed plenty of time to fish, and he became "addicted" to fly fishing for trout. He earned his PhD degree in Forest Sciences at the University of Idaho. His research interests at Clemson were in the areas of silviculture and fire ecology. He calls fly fishing a positive addiction which helped stabilize his moods as he struggled with a mild case of bipolar disorder throughout his life.