Fly fisherman Ed Rice, founder of International Sportsmen’s Exposition, dies

I visited Rice in hospice last week. He would occasionally emerge from days of sleeping and incoherence into consciousness and engage clearly for short periods, though with periodic lapses. He said that his late wife, Darlene, who died 10 years ago from cancer, had visited him.

“Darlene came to me last night,” he said. “She told me, ‘I’m waiting for you.’ I feel OK about dying now. I know she’s out there, waiting for me to show up. I’m pretty close now.”

Rice grew up in the forests and canyons outside Chico. He said a difficult childhood with an abusive father caused him to flee to the peace and excitement of creeks, rivers and canyons to explore, hike, camp and fish.

As he grew up, in a provocative choice that became a symbol of how he approached life, Rice learned how to skydive and became an expert. He was hired to make more than 1,000 jumps, often as the featured entertainment at county fairs, where he would sail in with pinpoint precision in front of grandstands of spectators.

“The only screw-up I ever had was when I didn’t pack my own chute,” Rice said. “I stupidly let someone else do it, and the thing wouldn’t open in front of a big crowd, coming down right in front of them.”

He was barely able to get his emergency chute open in time and hit the ground hard.

“They told me I’d put on a great show — a spectacular delayed landing,” Rice said. “But it was all screwed up. But like a lot of my life, we always seem to make it out.”

Rice had a big, swashbuckling presence that quickly earned him people’s trust. He found success in television sales, which prompted him to put his first exhibition show together.

His favorite event was in San Mateo, which he developed into the No. 1 fly fishing show in America. It hit its peak in 1992 after the release of Robert Redford’s film, “A River Runs Through It.”

Dozens of the top anglers appeared on Rice’s stages. His genius was to provide free public seminars, where anyone could ask questions of the best-known and most-traveled outdoor experts in America. He also donated free booth space to conservation organizations to help grow their membership.

In 2002, Rice became the first living member inducted into the California Outdoors Hall of Fame, and with posthumous awardee John Muir the tow are the only nominees to receive unanimous ballot support. When Rice was inducted into the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame, his best friend, Ray Beadle, said it was one of the rare moments in his life that he was touched by an award.

Rice parlayed his contacts into trips to the world’s best fishing destinations. For years, he spent far more days afield than at home.

In the 1990s, by arranging travel and payment via Italy, Rice was among the first in America to visit Cuba’s untouched fishing grounds, the Jardines de la Reina coral reef and its mangrove islands, tidal flats and blue holes. He is believed to be the only angler in history to catch (and release) the “Grand Slam of the Caribbean” on back-to-back days — that is, bonefish, permit, tarpon and snook.

And yet it was not his fishing greatness in Cuba that many remember from that trip, but rather that he brought $1,000 worth of medicine and food for guides and their villages.