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Wyoming loved Cheney and fly fishers
loved him more. When he arrived at the One Fly dinner the room would rise
as one, cheering and applauding as he made his way to his table. Actually,
that is not quite true. My friend would remain seated, arms crossed with a
face in a rigid scowl. But then again, he did once run, unsuccessfully, for
the House of Representatives as a Democrat.
It is fair to say that Cheney was a
polarising figure and with his VEEP popularity rating at 18% low his
Washington advisers suggested his love of fly fishing, if more known to the
American people, might knock off some rough edges. By all accounts the Vice-President
did not really take to the idea; the great outdoors did not come without
risk. When first nominated at Secretary of Defense by George Bush Snr. he
had to fess-up to three youthful indiscretions. Two were drink driving and
the third was fishing out of season, for which he received a fine and, in
his words, the annoyance of the rangers ‘confiscating the f*****g fish’. I
guess the current Vice-President, with his recent snaffo whilst fishing
unlicenced with our then Foreign Secretary, David Lammy was just continuing
a long tradition of piscatorial disobedience.
Cheney had also been caught out,
aside from the time when he accidentally shot a fellow hunter, in what we
would now call a social media pile on when an official photo released of
him apparently fly fishing seemed to show naked women reflected in his sunglasses.
The truth, a bare arm and some weird reflected optics, was only established
when the White House distributed the original hi-res image allowing all to
determine he was indeed outdoors and fishing, sans any accompanying
dance troupe.
Richard Bruce Cheney, politician and
fly fisher, born 30 January 1941; died 3 November 2025. He is survived by
Lynne and his daughters.
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