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 more than eight decades living at the exhilarating intersection of literature, sport, and the natural world and will be honored at the New York Yacht Club on the evening of Thursday, April 23.

Charles is the author of twenty-five books, including the National Book Award–nominated novel Stay Hungry and the highly regarded fly-fishing essay collection The Next Valley Over, which is considered one of the finest works on the sport. His literary work has graced the pages of magazines such as Harper’s, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Garden & Gun, Town & Country, Architectural Digest, and Audubon. He has twice received Emmy Awards for his screenwriting. In 2020, he was awarded the Alabama Truman Capote Prize for Distinguished Work in the Short Story or Literary Non-Fiction. A founding board member of Fly Fishing Team USA 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—with his nephew, the author and journalist Monte Burke—of two collections of salmon stories: Atlantic Salmon Treasury and Leaper: The Wonderful World of Atlantic Salmon Fishing.

Charles is the co-author of Pumping Iron, which inspired the 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, Charles also is, in the words of his nephew, “a mountaineer, canoeist, skydiver, grouse and woodcock guide, gourmet chef, unpretentious oenophile, early adopter of the game of pickleball (he had his own court fifteen years ago, well before the craze), and 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, and continues to be a gifted, thoughtful, and enduring voice for the sporting life.

Event Committee

Tyler Thompson (Chair)

Topher Browne, Monte Burke, Tracey Warmus Clarke, Greta Gaines, Nana Lampton, Galen Mercer, Bill Taylor, Gabe Tishman

AMFF 2026 Heritage Award honoring Charles Gaines