Paul H. Young took the light-weight and short bamboo fishing rod out of the toy, or novelty, class and made it the common bamboo rod in use since the 1940s. Initially he was laughed at--until people began to catch huge salmon and bonefish on the 6 and 7-foot long rods. He was also a superb fisherman, fly-tier, wrote books and had unique, folksy catalogs, and owners of his rods ( originally sold for $15 to $80, now selling for up to $10,000 each) included Dwight Eisenhower, Henry Ford, Ted Williams, and many other well-known people. Trout Unlimited named a chapter they'd formed for him. The book tells many little-known things about him and is the first book ever written about him, although there were many articles, and still are. It has one-of-a -kind photos of him as a baby, boy, young man, his wife and sons, and reprints articles about him by Arnold Gingrich (founding editor of "Esquire" magazine), Robert Travers (aka Judge John Voelker, author of Anatomy of a Murder) and A.J. McClane (founding editor of "Field and Stream") from their books still in print decades after their own deaths ( Trout Magic by Travers/Voelker, The Well-Tempered Angler by Gingrich, and McClane's New Standard Encyclopedia of Fishing , as well as articles by others, and letters by others (incl. Ted Williams, baseball Hall -of -Famer, Wes Jordan of South Bend Rod Co., Arthur Nuemann, co-founder of Trout Unlimited ), and stories by his brother,named for his cousin, baseball-great Cy Young, Paul's cousin Michigan historian Eva Ferrier, his son, and granddaughter that tell facts never before revealed about Young, and reprints his little gem of a book, Making and Using the Fly and Leader. For the first time fans will learn that his father was raised on a commune inspired by Rousseau, his mother had to let her sister raise his little brother and sisters (incl. Ben Young, co-founder and first vice-president of The National Bank of Detroit) while taking in boarders to survive 1900-1917 while his father "went missing", that his grandmother's father was a brother of the father of John Moses Browning who invented so many automatic weapons and parts including the Browning machine gun used extensively in WW1, that his mother's side is traced (and illustrated by personal stories in my book) in a direct line to 3 Revolutionary War foot soldiers and Captain John Browning, who was one of the earliest colonists of Jamestown, Virginia , a Burgess of two neighboring counties, member of first and oldest family in Virginia ( with his sons 6 and 7 and brother), a principle member of this first colony to succeed on American soil,arriving the day after Indians marched all whites not in Fort James into the sea to walk back to England, killing most if not all colonists living off fort (300 some) with a boat of dying men poisoned from "one Jeffrey Dupper's poisoned "beere" , and sister ship Sea Flower with all supplies never showed. Paul goes back in a direct line to at least 1264 England while on his father's side,almost all ancestors named john Browning til 1700. His grandmother was a quarter- Cree Indian from Canada.They will also read Martha and Paul's diaries upon marrying in 1920 when Martha was 20 and only here 6 years from Marseilles, France, land of all her ancestors, and of the rough winter Paul and his young bride had running a wheat farm in Saskatchewan that year. It holds within its covers fascinating tales, pages of photographs of his highly praised bamboo rods and skillfully made dry flies and taxidermy work, the story of his company and copies of his collectible catalogs , themselves containing letters from famous folk, drawings of his unique inventions Arnold Gingrich swore no angler could do without, fascinating pictures of the large fish these "fairy wands" caught to the surprise of even their maker, and how-to lessons with photos. No one knows, but soon will, the tale of Martha wanting her sons to see her homeland all her life, and how one does , finally--as he is forced to bomb its roads and bridges in the second World War. The book has something in it for everyone, from lovers of good stories to fans of Young's writing, rods, tackle and taxidermy. It is a history unlike any other.