The American Museum of Fly Fishing is proud to announce that Charles Gaines, pioneering outdoorsman, celebrated writer, and true renaissance figure, is the recipient of the 2026 Heritage Award. Charles has spent over eight decades living at the exhilarating intersection of literature, sport, and the natural world and will be honoured at the New York Yacht Club on the evening of April 23, 2026.
Charles is the author of 25 books, including the National Book Award, nominated novel Stay Hungry, and the highly regarded fly-fishing essay collection The Next Valley Over, considered one of the finest works on the sport. His literary work has graced the pages of Harpers, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Garden & Gun, Town & Country, Architectural Digest, Audubon, and many others. He has twice received Emmy Awards for his screenwriting, and in 2020, was awarded The Truman Capote Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Non-Fiction.
A founding board member of the U.S. Fly Fishing Team and a former board member of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, Charles has long championed cold-water conservation and ethical angling. He is also the co-editor of two collections of salmon stories The Atlantic Salmon Treasury and Leaper: The Wonderful World of Atlantic Salmon Fishing with his nephew, author, and journalist Monte Burke.
Charles is the co-author of Pumping Iron, the book and later documentary that not only catapulted bodybuilding into popular culture, but also introduced the world to Arnold Schwarzenegger. In a life that already seems so extraordinarily accomplished, he is also, in the words of his nephew, “a mountaineer, canoeist, skydiver, grouse and woodcock guide, gourmet chef, unpretentious oenophile, early adopter of the game of pickle-ball (he had his own court fifteen years ago, well before the craze) and he was the founder and owner of a sporting travel company named Pathways. Oh yeah, and he happens to be a co-inventor of the game of Paintball.”
He earned his MFA from the University of Iowa, where he was mentored by Kurt Vonnegut. His passion for adventure shines through in his masterful storytelling, which has captivated millions of readers and audiences. Today, Charles divides his time between Alabama and Nova Scotia, continuing to be a gifted, thoughtful, and enduring voice for the sporting life.
American Museum of Fly Fishing, 4070 Main Street, Manchester, VT 05254, USA
