Careful, guys, lest this site get lumped in with all the rest of the "fiction pages" on the internet
The way I look at it, FD was a good fisherman, no more, no less. There were, as Jeff said, hundreds as good, andsome better. Frank earned his fish, anyone who put the hours in that he did deservers the catches he made. But, it was easier then than it is now, at least for size.
The problem arises when guys start believing their own press clippings. Frank should have learned he couldn't walk on water the night he drowned his truck out at the old Chatham cut. As guys line up to kiss your ring, it's easy to fall into the trap of arrogance.
An example was telling someone who makes some of the real works of art in wooden plugs not to quit his day job. Hey Frank, just because you don't use poppers and needlefish, no need to show your ignorance like that. Frank must be the only guy in the whole world who never caught a fish on a bottle plug. Yep, it wouldn't be my first choice to throw in calm surf when the fish are on sand eels, but that's no ecuse for a blanket indictment of the plug. Just shows either his pettiness (word was that old man Stan wouldn't grease him with freebies) or that he always fished a very closed universe.
Hey, Bill, c'mon, you know there's no graphite blank stiff enough to make into a conventional ;-)